


Road to Hades: I

by CadyWimzie



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Brotherly Love, Cartoon Physics, Crimes & Criminals, Dogs, Fantasy, Flashbacks, Fluff and Humor, Friendship, Gen, Magic, Mystery, Nature, Original Universe, POV Alternating, POV Third Person Omniscient, Shapeshifting, Slow Burn, Song Lyrics, To Be Edited
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2018-11-22 14:28:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 47,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11382084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CadyWimzie/pseuds/CadyWimzie
Summary: Grapple City isn't all bad. Some parts are just rougher than others. The same cannot be said for Limbo Valley; a wide, long wasteland made up of sand and cactuses and despair that separates the city's civilization from the next one, where it's heat and grittiness or nothing. A vast, leafy forest and snowcapped mountains to the far Northeast are merely additions to a region too peculiar for fiction.The steel-and-concrete environment makes for the perfect home for a gang of ragtag men who fight with their fists and lift their noses to guns, all under the cover of night. All ragtag... apart from a choicethree, who like to think of themselves as devilishly cohesive and slick, thank you very much.Roman, Dean, and Seth provide for each other, and they do so by being nasty to others. Plain and simple. It all made sense up until just recently, and now nothing does--- not when things like rawhide bones and tummy rubs are suddenly so valid.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there! This is my first fanfic on AO3, and also the reason I joined to begin with!
> 
>  ***My old description of this story in this note was a bit dated and much more vague, so I will try to sum it up in fewer words and get closer to the point in less time:** this is a long-winded piece of multichapter work that is far from being finished. It dances on the border between telling a sincere, serious tale with dangerous stakes and being positively goofy. And it takes place in an AU where magic exists but isn't commonly used or known of by many.
> 
> Updates will be rickety.
> 
> I've had this idea since 2014. It's a bit overcrowded, and pretty ambitious for me. I hope you guys enjoy the concept as much as I do! :D

 

 

_"So who are these guys? Do they know each other?"  
_

_"No, actually. They knew nothing of each other before we brought them in. Leading separate lives, never having even crossed one another's paths by coincidence."_

_"Brought them **in**?"_

_"Yes. What they were doing before now doesn't need to be disclosed. They might tell you in time, but for now they aren't sure who they can trust."_

_"No, no, I mean... what'd you bring 'em in for? Who are you people, anyway? They're grown men-- not teenagers. They don't need to be adopted out to a loving home or-or whatever you think--"_

_"They're perfect."_

_"...What?"_

_"They're perfect. We need them for a certain something, and we're asking that you keep them close and make sure that the peace is kept between them until we require their..._ expertise _once again."_

_"So to be clear, they know what's going on? They just won't tell me, is what you're saying?"_

_"Oh, yes, of course! They were practically_ willing _about it all!"_

 

* * *

 

On one of his many strolls through his growing throng of gangmates talking lowly to each other or dutifully working out, Hunter Hearst Helmsley walked with the authoritative stride of a prison guard, watching over all the tough guy thugs who came to him seeking work-- either in the past or much more recently than that.

But, as per usual, he found his eyes panning-- albeit somewhat fretfully, though he'd never admit it-- to the three dudes who didn't so much 'seek him out' as 'get referred' to him.

"Seth," he addressed. He didn't need to shout, as the room wasn't particularly overrun with voices in spite of how many guys occupied it. The young man sharply looked up as though he had just gotten slapped, a thick strand of artificially blond hair falling messily across his forehead and over his right eye.

Hunter kept a strict tone. "You should be over there, don't you think? With Dean."

"Uh." It was the only sound Seth could manage, which spoke volumes. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, and instead of turning himself around or craning his neck to look, he lied down on his back and peered upside down across the room at the much angstier, shorter-haired man who was currently sitting at a table and dragging the point of a large kitchen knife over the wooden surface between his elbows in a ruthless carving motion, an iron grip on the hilt.

"Y-yeah, Mr. Helmsley, of course," he mumbled. He rolled onto his stomach and picked himself up, sauntering over at a hesitant pace whilst picking uneasily at the black fabric of his shirt.

"Roman," Helmsley continued, turning in the opposite direction to spy the big man leaning against a strong support coming down from the ceiling, his huge arms crossed over his chest and his long hair let down over his shoulders. A majestic, stone statue, Reigns was a teensy bit more difficult than the other two. Much quieter. Brooding. Rarely smiled. He was the oldest, and he carried with him enough lip to healthily sustain all three of them (in those few and far between moments when he actually bothered to say anything, that is.)

He looked up at the sound of his name, a brow quirked.

"If standing around is all you wanna do, go stand around over there," Hunter instructed, motioning to the similar support nearest to the table Rollins and Ambrose were now both stationed at.

"Why?" Roman surprised him by asking, still unmoving from the spot.

"Because I _said_ so, man," he replied, with a slight whine of exasperation to his voice. "Now, c'mon, get moving."

Resigning pretty quick, Reigns pushed off and strode with much more confidence than Rollins had had to go occupy the very support Helmsley mentioned, his boss' counter to his question evidently enough to wheedle him into complying.

And with that, all Helmsley could really do was watch. He was unable to hear them as clearly as he would have liked, though. Roman still said nothing, but his eyes were now fixated on the two men sitting at the table. Seth said something to Dean, who shrugged noncommittally in reply, still focused wholeheartedly on the knife. No one was throwing punches yet.

They'd be all right, Helmsley figured. At the very _most_ , they'd learn to coexist.

He wasn't expecting any more than that.


	2. Incognito

_  
_

 

_"Why does watching a dog be a dog fill one with happiness?" - Jonathan Safran Foer_

 

* * *

 

An unearthly whizzing sound stung the air and slithered through the sand. A road cut through the Valley, but in the dark of a full-fledged nighttime, it was lit by nothing but the electricity coming from the rolling storm clouds overhead and the haze of emerald washing over the land. A particularly chilly wind blew through, and as the hours passed, the movable hills and mounds changed shape countless times.

The largest and ugliest cloud out of them all flickered once in discontent, brightly but silently. It was punctured fast by a strong light beam of green, without warning or evident reason. The power protruded abruptly from a break in the ground and climbed its way relentlessly up toward the gray sky, unhindered even by the rain that started pouring down. A startled shriek came from far below:

"Wet, _wet_ , wet, wet!"

A silhouette crawled alongside a shadow. It looked reptilian with its long, pointy tail and short, grippy legs. A forked tongue zipped in and out, hissing about the downpour. It opened its mouth to a gaping height and shot purple fire from its lungs that reached six inches in front of it, but it did nothing to remedy the wetness. A tiny snarl of frustration cut loose from its body.

"Silly water drops!"

It continued to shoot fire as it ran. Through a field of bursting chartreuse shades and slithering, spidering, roaring, but most importantly _surfacing_ presences. It was a light show for fifty miles across, bringing with it fear and rage and delight. And no one on the planet knew it was happening.

Another hour of this madness and many clicks away, the reptile took notice of two eye-like lights moving smoothly through on the cement road, connected suspiciously to a huffing, groaning machine spouting black smoke. _Yipe!_ In very short time the creature found a ditch to hunker down in. It lit itself up, smoldering lilac scales off and replacing them with fur. Earthly brown fur, overtop a lithe, bendy body. The purple, fire-breathing menace was now a whiskered weasel snickering craftily to itself and running off to go do bad. Work was to be done.

Bad, _bad_ work.

 

* * *

 

_Clack, clack, clack, clack, clack!_

The baton's passing over the black metal slatted fence was anything but silent. It caused a grating echo that only hurt the ears of the people the gesture was aimed at; the people caught _behind_ the slats, sitting on the floor with their heads ducked. There had to have been six or seven of them in there, all trapped. All different ages and types. Boxed in against a windowless wall by a fence that stretched from one side of the square archway to the other, and was almost as tall as the ceiling. No way out.

Seth retracted the baton and chuckled. A stout man with dark, curly hair was looking out at him, glaring tightly. Their corner of the hallway didn't look so comfy, so Seth understood where the bitterness was coming from.

This weak chump, in his dumb Hawaiian button-down and sandals...

"You can't _glare me_ to death. Folks have tried." He curled his fingers around one of the slats, settling the baton down between two more and bouncing the weapon back and forth off them, creating more racket. He smirked and relished in the visible wince that showed up on Curly Hair's face. "Just so we're clear, you're _my Watch_. All of you. Every last _one_ of you. You get to spend the foreseeable evening with me."

"Yeah, we'll see about that," said Curly, in a biting tone of voice that was just biting enough to get Seth angry. He opened his mouth to make a retort, but a sudden _bang_ down the hall cut him off. The double doors at the far end of the corridor with the long plank of wood sitting horizontally through their handles lurched greatly from the outside, as though someone or something got rammed against it, hard. The loud sound was followed by a series of quieter yaps, and scratching, as of an animal's claws.

Seth tried to hide his flinch, but evidently he didn't do a good enough job of it; Curly starting to snicker, mocking him.

"Are you afraid of my dog, _Captain_ Rollins?"

He steeled himself, furrowing his brows and leaning farther in against the prison. His voice carried sheer malice with it: "My rank isn't prime for ridicule. I'd keep my mouth closed if I were you."

"Just until we're rescued, I suppose."

"There isn't gonna be a rescue!" Seth moved back again, resisting a groan of annoyance. He surged his arm back sharply and took another noisy whack at the cell wall with the baton. "And while we're at this practice, how 'bout you shut up unless I ask you something?!"

" _We'd_ love to," Curly snarked back, "because there's nothing else we came here for except our stolen friend! We're not interested in your artifacts or your crazy boss' greed!"

"Yeah, you _say that_ to cover your hides for the time being," said Seth, in a very finalizing manner. He waved with a chopping motion of the hand and departed, heading up in the opposite direction of the locked doors with the rabid dog behind them. "Give a holler if you guys change your minds, all right?" he threw over his shoulder, before reentering the doors at the other end of the hall.

They opened up into a giant, crowded room, with very little light apart from the blaring spotlight strung through the rafters still shining down on the now-empty interrogation chair they'd been paying such close attention to in recent hours. There were racks upon racks of abandoned storage space in this old pier warehouse.

Gangmates-- _underlings_ \-- nodded to him when he passed, albeit not with very much enthusiasm. He remembered most of their names, but not all. They definitely knew his name. They were thinned out around this side of the room, but farther in, there was a large crowd of both Helmsmen and Von Bellmen (henchmen to a rich, reluctant ally of theirs, Cohen Von Bell) making a pretty big ruckus.

_Von Bellmen aren't nearly as loyal as us Helmsmen. Just don't go mentioning it._

Seth's combat boots crackled over loose clumps of dry wall. Some part of the room got into a nasty altercation with a trigger happy fist-- and the half-blond architect wasn't ruling out either of his thoroughly wound-up partners as possible culprits.

Oh no; the stakes were too high. Unless Helmsley conditioned they be manageable, they were under no obligation to control themselves-- and you could bet your ass they _wouldn't_.

Seth could, for the time being. He had a Watch, which meant it was his responsibility to keep his eyes on and/or guard a person or thing until he was told to stop. Tonight was long enough as it was without the little girl in the hallway sticking her gum to the back of his pants through the prison bars. He wanted to snap, but only his one and only superior could give him the order to do that.

These people were clowns. They were the weirdest, bravest, gratingly happiest pieces of crap Seth ever had the displeasure of meeting, and between pressuring them for information on the whereabouts of a missing artifact and reinforcing the windows with nails and wood to keep Curly Hair's deranged hell spawn dog out, his patience was tried many hours ago.

At least he had help with the latter.

"Heyo, Seth," said a rough voice from behind him. Seth turned with lifted eyebrows.

Dean was now standing in the rubble with him, fiddling with a stretch of thin netting and rolling a protruding nailhead back and forth in front of his gritted teeth, looking testy as usual.

"Seth, warehouse brother, compadre... if you let me play with this any more I'm gonna get tangled in it. Then I'm swallowing the nail, and, believe me, it'll be on purpose."

"Dread to think. Gimme that, Ambrose," he said, lightly rolling his eyes as he took the net and the nail back from his partner. "Why didn't you just put it down somewhere?"

The grumpy dude shrugged. His voice never did change tone. "Got nothin' better to do. We can stand at Helmsley's side and look suave, but we ain't gettin' sicced on anybody."

" _I_ can't," Seth pointed out, drawing a hand up to his chest. "I'm working construction tonight-- and I gotta babysit those dingbats in the hall."

Dean's lips pulled back and up into a scheming smile, suddenly looking very wolfish. "Lemme take care of that last part for you, brotha."

"No, it's _my_ haul," the younger sighed in reply.

"...'f it's _your_ haul, that makes it _my_ haul."

"You know Helmsley doesn't think that way. You're just trying to stir up trouble," Seth accused, smirking almost instantly at the all-at-once pout of dejection on Dean's face. "...and it's no less _endearing_ than usual, but I gotta do what I'm told. Sorry."

Dean tapped his chin and pursed his lips. "You think I'm endearing? That's one strike against me, you know."

"No strike. I promise I won't tell anyone." He pushed against the man's firm chest with just enough force to bend his fingers back. "I don't wanna keep you anymore. Go back to Roman."

"No, look: I would accept _deplorable_. Am I at least deplorable? You just set me back three years with that 'endearing' business, man."

"Does it seem like we have the time to talk about this? 'Cause we don't."

The older grinned harshly all of a sudden, taking Seth aback. "Just wanna see how far into your head I can get. Not very far... which means you've got your shields up. I applaud that."

Unfortunately, every Helmsman knew for fact that Dean Ambrose had the most contagious smile on deck, be it mocking or sincere. Seth wasn't entirely immune himself; that was the unfortunate part.

"Yeah, well... don't do that." He smirked despite himself and snapped around on his heel, walking away to go resume his work. He didn't get far, as a metallic clatter and shouting from across the room made him stop in his tracks.

He turned again, to find that Dean already had. His partner's taped fists were clenched and his wound body poised. The two men exchanged a look.

"Like I decreed: go with Roman."

Dean sneered at him. His charming smile from a moment ago was long gone. "You see how far you can get usin' that word 'decreed' around me."

Seth didn't have a comeback. He watched with wary brown eyes as his brother of three years sprinted off, back into the tattooed throng of burly men and weapon wielders. He had to admit he _did_ get ahead of himself sometimes. Dean and his other brother, Roman Reigns, kept him in check when the situations became dire. Like when arguments came to blows or Helmsley was at his wit's end with them.

The only authority Seth Rollins had over anybody was authority over the likes of men like Greg Dockins, Shaun Bold, or the twins Ethan and Elgin Walbert. The guys ranked beneath them, who weren't told the same things Seth, Dean, and Roman were told. Secrets. An entirely different set of training methods and signals that Helmsley only ever used with them, and everyday assurance that they were _his guys_. His most trusted.

So, no, there wasn't anything Seth could demand of either of them. They were equal.

The plan was to finish his work on the four-pane window and then skulk in to see what the fuss was about over by his colleagues. He would check back in with Curly and Co. when the mood struck him. Helmsley cautioned him about just how slippery those people were-- as if Seth didn't already know-- and advised he look in on them frequently to make sure they were "still there."

As. if.

The strange substance that was used to stick the fence to the walls was so strong, and not to mention otherworldly as far as Seth was concerned, that there wasn't a way on Earth they could escape without someone noticing them. Liquidized Amaranth would do that job like no other. The reddish-purpleish gemstone drew stuff in like a magnet, and, in this case, was used like glue during the process of melting down and drying.

 _Yes_ , his men were prepared for anything, and Helmsley would do good to believe it! Even if tonight ended peacefully on the prisoners' half and they went home unharmed, it was, predictably, still going to take a good hour or so to free them the slow and careful way.

There _was_ no other way, as far as what was known.

With a satisfied nod, Seth hooked the hammer onto his belt and made for that very room, just for the hell of it. He cracked it open and was not surprised to find the same troupe starting to attention at his dreaded presence.

"Come for another argument? I'm drained, buddy," said Curly, bleakly.

Seth clicked his tongue and strutted in. "Good to know."

"You know, you're- you're gonna get mauled by Ricci's dog, ya no-good- uh- _creepo_!" a small voice piped up. Seth looked down at the young girl on the floor, dressed in an oversized, white t-shirt and shorts. She wore a beige bandanna around her head, and was currently looking straight up at him, incensed and stupidly courageous. She had to have been around nine-- ten at most!

He neared the bars again. "Big words, little one. Something tells me you wouldn't be saying them if we didn't have a fence separating us."

"That may be true, but why're _you_ lockin' _us_ in, then?" she smartly asked, even though the words themselves were the opposite of that.

The corner of Curly's mouth lifted slightly. Another wave of exasperation reached Seth, except this time he had to wonder if this was the only plan these morons had up their sleeves; pissing him off.

"Because you might have-- ugh, ha, _hell_! Why am I reasoning with a toddler? Enjoy the next three hours stewing in here." He scowled and moved away, storming for the door.

"Uh, w-wait, Rollins?" Curly called out.

With his back still turned, Seth grinned a menacing grin, knowing he'd won. He crossed his arms to revel for a few precious seconds before saying a word, and angled his head just so so they could see the mere side of it.

"Yeah, Dog Hair?"

There was a string of uncertain silence. Curly filled in the last bit of it with hesitant humming, before saying with an unexpected coating of _sure_ certainty, "You know you've still got gum on your ass, right?"

"Wha, _still_ \--?! C'mon!"

He practically spat his distaste. He quickly flipped around to exit the room backwards, trying his very hardest to ignore the laughter from inside the confines at his expense. They were making fun of him! Like they were in any position to do a thing like that!

As soon as he was outside the room he checked the back of his pants, and was even more outraged to find that there was nothing there at all.

His hateful thinking moved on out of his head and eventually found his voice, leading him to grumble as he moved his hands down the backs of his thighs just to make sure. He didn't hear the footsteps behind him until it was too late.

"Cap'n, Helmsley wants... you." He snapped around with an almost audible growl. There Shaun Bold was now, staring at him behind his curtain of all-blond hair and also the screen of the laptop he carried around everywhere. He was looking at Seth like he grew another limb.

"Yeah, I'm- I'm _on it_ , all right?!" he yelled, earning a flinch. He got a prompt nod and then Shaun was outta there, hurrying away-- probably to go sit against a wall and ruin his eyes some more. With a muttered curse under his breath, Seth started to head over there.

He grabbed the hair tie off his wrist to pin his hair back on the way, all the while analyzing the body language of the thugs around him who weren't bothering to nod respectfully at him anymore.

There was a cool, sea-smelling draft here. Gentle moonlight was seeping through the crack in the one door across from where he was that Helmsley told him not to close. His Boss' voice carried on the night breeze, making him hear it faster than he would have otherwise:

"...so since a thorough _beating_ didn't get the words out of Mr. Ziggler's mouth, I'm afraid I'm gonna have to revisit a theory you aren't gonna like, Cohen..."

Breaking through, Seth found a one Dolph Ziggler-- though he barely recognized him-- lying on the floor of the warehouse inside the circle of crowding men, broken and battered. Slick redness covered his face from an untended bloody nose, staining his pink shirt. Various smaller cuts covered his skin, from his scalp to his bruised arms. His eyes were screwed shut.

Helmsley was at the forefront of all of this in his usual t-shirt, jeans, and ponytail, standing beside a ruffled Cohen Von Bell. Von Bell was a suit-clad man with a curled mustache and slicked, dark hair. Pasty skin.

Right then, he was livid. "I warned you not to question me again, Helmsley. It isn't _me_ who has your Globe!"

Dean and Roman were standing together to the side of Helmsley. They were stone-like; unmoving and unblinking at the violence going on in front of them. Looking like a perfect unit, donning the same shade of black and taking on the same pose. Staring _through_ what was happening; not at.

Seth receded back into the crowd to avoid walking through the open circle. Image and all that. He went all the way around and approached from the back, drifting up to flank Dean. He mimicked his brother's pose and above all else _listened_ for all he was worth, already hating his late arrival.

"Maybe you don't have it," said their leader, "but I'll bet you know where it is." He raised his hand, arm bent in a way that was all too recognizable. Fingers pressed close together and palm adjacent to his nose. Cohen gasped.

"No! Wait! You're being rash, Hunter!"

"Am I?"

Von Bell's men moved out of hiding, leering at Helmsley. Seth clenched up, initiating a domino effect of risen hackles and spiked senses. It became a hungry stare-off.

"...No," Helmsley said, not lowering his arm. "No. I'm really startin' to think your time with us is up, Cohen."

With that, his hand tipped and his index finger pointed straight at Von Bell. He didn't have to speak.

It was the loudest, most important motion in existence. The three of them teed off at exactly the same second, exploding off their vantage spots and rushing to get to a horrified Cohen, who was evidently no longer worth their time. Three Von Bellmen jumped in front of their boss. Dean tackled the one in the middle, making him topple against Cohen's legs and, in turn, making _him_ fall over too. Dean ravenously climbed over his breathing obstacle and straddled their target, but he got grabbed by the hair and pulled backwards off him.

Roman had one of the two others in his grasp, holding the guy's hands tightly in front of him and kneeing him in the back. Seth ran with his opponent and dropkicked him into Roman's, sending them both falling to the floor and landing in a heap.

Not long in, they were joined by Ethan and Elgin. More of Von Bell's guys joined the fray, evening the odds. Gregory joined in. _Everyone_ joined in. Ziggler snuck away unnoticed, crawling on his hands and knees with a raspy cough here or a pitiful wheeze there. No one was paying any attention to him anymore.

Beneath the din of the fight, whirring undertones caught Seth's attention. Another dude came flying at him. He spun him out straight into Roman's fist.

As soon as they were through, their main goal was once again to get to Cohen as fast as possible and clobber him into the floor. The whirring was getting louder, though... Under the spell of this distraction, someone stuck their leg out and Seth got tripped. He landed on his stomach but made a wild reach for Cohen's still-visible legs. They became _in_ visible not long after as more legs crowded, muddied his vision, and the ones he had a visual lock on backed up. A boot came down on top of Seth's back, making him gasp out.

The Weather Globe was an artifact Helmsley had been searching for in tandem with Von Bell for about a month now. It was the size of an ordinary snow globe, and functioned similar to one... except it had _actual influence_ over the weather, as far out or as close in as you desired. Magic wasn't uncommon here, even though Seth had long ago been informed that out in the great, big world, it was not considered "the norm," per se. It wasn't something they played with often, or had an endless knowledge or understanding of. It was just an occurrence. Three times out of every week, probably. It didn't always work in their favor, either. It had a nasty habit of working against them, in fact.

Seth wasn't sure what his boss wanted the Globe for, and didn't peg him for the type of guy who would want that much control. Still, he was getting kicked in the ribs because of it, so there had to have been a... reason. A perfectly reasonable... _reason_.

Above him, Roman locked up with the Von Bellman doing all the damage to his spine and ribcage, allowing him to unwind and sit up. Dean was still in pursuit of Cohen as far as Seth could tell. Something happened very suddenly and the clashing sounds of bodies and fists subsided, getting drowned out by a deafening roar coming from outside. The whirring noise. The force of it blew closed the one opened door, and, as Seth looked, he saw Cohen ascending the two sets of staircases starting beside the wall, leading up to the square cutout in the sloped ceiling. Their rich, _former_ ally ran for the roof and stuffed something under his suit jacket as he went, tailed by two of his lackeys. It became apparent fast that they had underestimated his trickiness.

Through the hole, against the backdrop of the dark, cloudy sky, Seth saw fast-moving propellers spinning. A _helicopter_?

"C'mon," he heard Roman say, over the loud purring and shouts from Greg ordering all the other Helmsmen to keep off the stairs until the chase was done. He extended a hand down to Seth, and Seth used it not only to get to his feet but also to shoot himself forward into a hard run for the landing. He pounded up the stairs with Roman and Dean on his trail, climbing to the roof in under a minute.

By the time they got there, it was too late. They watched Cohen land beneath the roof of the chopper off a confident leap, with one of his henchmen following. Dean sped up to catch the second, but all he did was graze the back of the guy's shirt with his fingertips. He teetered over the edge, but Seth grabbed him by the back of his thin kevlar, reeling him in.

They got waved off as the vehicle picked up speed and turned sharply, hitting an elevated seafood joint sign and knocking it lopsided as their newfound foes flew away. Dean's hands formed infuriated fists. He stood closest to the drop, letting loose an angry yell. Roman sighed and looked down on the empty boardwalk below, his dark eyebrows knitted in general dislike. Seth held his ribs and chuckled weakly despite it hurting.

They failed.

"So I guess that's why they call him 'rich,' huh?"


	3. In the Marrow

 

* * *

 

"You're not funny, Seth. That's not funny," Dean bit out, clenching and unclenching his right fist like there was an invisible stress ball sitting in the palm of his hand.

Seth looked down on the boardwalk a good eighteen feet below, only paying half a mind to his brother's statement as he searched the wooden landscape for Curly's infamous Doberman Pinscher. "I wasn't trying to be funny. It's called a 'cynical joke,' Ambrose. You're not supposed to laugh."

"Well, land sakes, you're no good at them."

"It's _sake_. Not 'sakes.'"

"Shut up!"

Before they could go on, they heard a loud _boom_ beneath their feet, back down inside the warehouse. The roof rumbled and the water stirring closest to the pier shivered, shaking and breaking up glimmering shards of light. It put them back in work mode; ducking their heads and retaking their earlier path single file down the stairs. The nearby lights of the city gave way to dusty, splintery ceiling as the storage room swallowed them back up again. Back to work.

"Cohen Von Bell... Cohen Von _Bell_..." To their surprise, Helmsley had his hands braced against the wall and was hitting his head against the surface area spared between them, hatefully speaking under his breath. Dean froze halfway down the first staircase, barely getting jostled by his two brothers stalling clumsily against his back when they had no walking room left. He heard Seth's quick breathing pause for a few seconds.

The longer Hunter rambled to himself, the more Dean's smirk widened. It was more good-humored than his usual gloating nastiness.

"I always hated that guy."

When they got to looking around, they noticed Ziggler was now nowhere to be found and all the Von Bellmen had cleared out, leaving no one except familiar faces. Greg helped a winded Ethan to his feet. His faded green wife-beater was ripped across the chest and one of his pant legs was released from its neat, tucked state inside his boot.

Seth stuttered. "Uh, you... you want, we can clean up this mess, no sweat. I'll free Commune in there and his band of farmers."

"No need," said Helmsley, finally tearing himself away from the dry wall. "Dolph just crept in there while we were distracted and blew up the prison. They've all already escaped."

"Ah, _dammit_!"

"You seem pretty chill about all this," Roman observed, with a partway suspicious narrowing of his eyes.

Their boss shrugged. "What kind'a leader would I have been if I didn't see these things coming? We nipped at 'em; they bit back. I think the lines are very clearly drawn now. We'll have another day to come out on top, Reigns. Don't you forget it."

A one Baron Corbin shoved his way to the front of the first layer of assembled gangmates, rudely pushing Bold sidelong in the process. "Yeah, another day spent prayin' Dean's legs can run fast enough to actually _catch_ his quarry."

Dean's smirk fell. At the drop of a hat he was throwing his body over the railing of the stairs. It was only when his two brothers grabbed him under each arm, pulling him down from his almost-lunge that his deep baritone voice bounced around the mostly-closed-up facility they inhabited:

"YOU DIDN'T SEE JACK SQUAT!"

"Dean, _Dean_ , hey, cool it," Seth eased, lowering his infuriated teammate to the steps with Roman's help. Dean could feel the younger man's heart rate quicken simply through the hold he had him in, and he had to admit... he was calming down early because of it. He still made an effort to kick and grunt in oafish, animalistic fashion for the sake of show. They were almost out of here. Just a few more minutes of boiling _rage_...

"Listen," Helmsley continued, pretty much perfectly ignoring the scrapper's outburst and speaking with his usual coolness, "you all need rest. Seth needs an alert brain to draw out a strategy for retaliation--"

"It's gonna involve a helicopter," Seth interjected, eyebrows lifting in genuine excitability that was not mirrored by the subordinates.

"-- _and_ our suspicions with Ziggler's people are not lifted; they're even worse now. They may not look like much, but they've gotten the better of us more times than I'd like to expound on... particularly..." His gaze panned over his gang as a whole but lingered on the three men on the stairs he deemed superior. Dean made a face before shaking off his brothers and getting up off his ass.

"So we'll call it quits for tonight. Task assignments go down in the rail yard tomorrow. Don't call me after three a.m.." With those final words to his group, the gang leader of Helmsmen walked over to the crate beside the door and picked up his sledge hammer, resting it over his shoulder on the way out.

Dean gave Baron one last glower before hurrying down the rest of the steps-- only with an entirely different intention in mind now. He broke off in similar fashion to Seth to go collect the walking cane he brought with him as a weapon for the night's work. When Seth returned with the pool cue he brought, they were ready to leave for the bar, or the apartment they shared, or wherever the hell they felt like.

 

 

The chilliness of the evening was crawling over the boardwalk this late at night. In April, gang affairs that happened lakeside always had promise to be awfully nippy, and tonight was no exception.

They were stopped by their car trunk, putting weapons away. Roman brought nothing.

"No paddle, no pan, no putt," Seth named off only a small few, "and yet, hey, you _still_ saved my ass. And by 'my ass,' I mean my ribs." He looked up at Roman appreciatively. The longer-haired of the two nearly cracked a smile, leaning against the side of the truck and removing the tape from his hands. His stoical focus remained on Seth a moment longer and then returned to what he was doing, altogether unmoved by the sentiment.

The front of their ride sat in gravel. It faced the city skyline streets away from them, brightly lit, offering the stars no limelight. The scent of the hectic, crowded place lingered on their clothes despite not following them out to the docks, where all they smelled was fish. It was their home before any other place. It was all they knew, outside of being well-read on tips for staying alive out in the desert that was _way_ in the other direction from where they currently were. Across the city, and through a few musty slums. Limbo Valley, as they knew it.

People usually stayed away from that place if all they had to move forward with was their feet.

"Where we headed after this?" asked Dean, after a considerable amount of silence. They weren't exactly gunning to get in the truck and drive away; he was leaning on a cardboard box and craning his neck, watching Era Bridge through the steam billowing out of a nearby grate. The giant structure stood high above the still waters, unshaken.

"The Vulgar Crow, if we aren't too beat?" Seth chipped in.

Their favorite bar wasn't right smack in the middle of downtown, but then, neither was their current apartment. The two were in rather close proximity to each other.

"Well, I mean, sure. Even if they've seen us every day of the week for the past three weeks, I guess it doesn't mat--"

"Hold up, hold on, wait," Seth interrupted him, bringing out a halting hand gesture. "Do you, Dean Ambrose, have a _better_ plan?"

A taxi honked in the distance. Dean snapped his head back down to look inside the trunk again. He pushed the box to the back but kept his hand inside of it. "Maybe."

"Cool. Tell me what it is."

Dean thought, and it was every bit as exciting to watch as you could imagine. He was feeling around inside the box and his fingers located a sleek, white feather that he proceeded to twirl lazily, ignoring having to answer.

He was startled, to say the least, when it was pulled out of his weak grip by Seth.

"Dude, what is it? This is a free-thinking zone, all right? Tell me."

"I mean, I know we don't just go to Vulgar Crow 'cause we don't got anything better to do," Dean quickly elaborated. "'Cept, you both know, I get a black eye there at least every other time, so maybe we're not missin' nothin.'"

"I gotta return the pool cue to that place," Roman cut in. "Just for the score, we're stoppin' there anyway."

"Yeah. Priorities. But, uh..." His eyes lowered to the pavement. He felt strangely comforted knowing their eyes were burning into him now. "I wanna drive around, _not_ be angry, 'n... unplug until tomorrow, just generally."

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Seth's hands finding his hips. " _Ah_. I think I get it."

"The hell you do."

"And by 'not be angry,' you mean 'not be angry unless _I_ wanna be,' right? I don't think that's something you can decide for yourself, Dean."

He got an immensely _miffed_ , 'you know what I mean' face from Dean, despite the older's second-ago dedication to not admitting Seth knew him well at all. Sure, he certainly _knew_ the truth and didn't deny it... in his _brain_.

"Fine, fine. I don't give a crap, man. We'll go it your way. Hell if I don't need to unwind a little bit myself, huh?"

"Yeah. Non-priorities." The scrappy guy nodded whilst his younger teammate closed up the trunk. His back was to him when the pull to leave the area started dictating his movements.

Roman turned to go around by the driver's seat door, but had yet to take his eyes off them. Sirens screamed on high as an emergency somewhere in the city made itself known, but it wasn't _their_ doing. Not tonight.

Dean couldn't figure out the reason for the stillness. He had been in the middle of flexing his hand in front of his face (and scowling at it) when he felt Seth's forearm dig into his shoulder and firm chest butt up against his back, making his spine straighten out.

"Hell--?" Dean's hands rushed up to grab hold of the securing arm Seth slung over his right shoulder and across his chest. A light, fluffy _something_ plowed into his neck, attacking his skin by way of brushing up every single nerve that could possibly make him squirm.

The feather. Right.

A short, guttural laugh came out of him, try as he did to make it so. It was still basically a titter, and a goofy one at that.

He had that arm bent back so fast, distancing himself from Rollins enough that his own body slammed hard against the truck's solid black exterior, and the tickly feeling disappeared.

"You crazy?!" he snapped, with no small amount of his usual barb.

He wanted to sound steely-- all bass and fury-- and for a moment he thought he did. But Seth wasn't deterred and Dean most definitely _was_ _not_ furious; grabbing his partner by the roots of his hair when he came back at him again; sticking to the side of the truck like glue and drawing back a meek fist despite his smile.

Seth didn't seem to _want_ to stop goofing around, but a strong arm shot out and barred him back regardless. He stepped off, grinning recklessly, and Dean was left to recollect himself while their older partner busied himself speaking reason:

"How 'bout we save that activity for _not here_?" Roman suggested to Seth. He wasn't by any stretch mad; just mindful. Seth tamely nodded.

"Yeah, yeah, I know how it goes," the youngest droned, in spite of the sincerity on his face. Dean watched the two disband and the latter reapproach him, looking no less impish. "C'mon, Ambrose, your way is best."

He relinquished the feather, holding it out to him. "Also, you should probably hold onto this. I suck when I've got this kind'a power in my hands; you've said that before."

Dean took it back from him, squinting his eyes. A smile played at his lips through the strictness as he smoothed his messy copper hair back with the palm of his hand and then stuck the quill end of the feather through it, holding it there for the time being. "The _woooorst_."

He backhanded Rollins just under his ribs, careful not to accidentally hurt him. He made his way over to the passenger seat door to find that Roman was now standing next to it, watchful as usual. The eldest smiled affectionately at him and gave his shoulder a press before making a move to go take on the wheel.

Seth hopped in the backseat. All was quiet as Roman pulled out of the lot and peeled off down the listless beachside road...

"But you _do_ know this is just for lock picking purposes, right?" Dean said in feigned haughtiness, one elbow resting on the door and the opposite hand fingering the decorative "tool" in his hair.

He could _hear_ the grin in Seth's voice: "Sure. I forgot."

 

* * *

 

 A tourbillon of shrill noise and a sea of frenzied, winged menaces spiraled out of a vast rotunda made out of soil brown rock, swooping up into a more brightly lit room high above. Creatures with the faces of pretty women and the bodies of hawks.

This centre cavern was amass with activity, big and small. Far away from the forefront, a giant geyser exploded, expelling green flame like projectile vomit. Or volcanic matter. A man in a dark robe and sandals strode past without cue, prompting the surrounding geysers that were doing a better job at concealing themselves in subtlety to erupt. There was an urgency about the way he walked, despite his appearance screaming 'docile.'

He was fair-skinned, not without muscle, and wolfish with his short dark hair and beard covering more than just his chin but his jawline as well. His presence made the cave quake with the force of the chemic implosions until he lifted a hand to put a stopper on it. His very _expression_ was frank, if not displeased. It seemed to lead the charge solely, bringing him through a gaping archway into the next space. The ceiling and walls dripped in this room, bleeding out a pinkish-red ick. Many subdued voices moaned in pained exertion, sending up a reverberated chorus of suffering that may very well have set a much fainter-hearted person's blood to chill but certainly not his.

Before him lied a maze of old bones strewn as far as the opposite wall. He walked down the clear path they provided and followed their guidance-- their rules. Smaller bones on the floor crackled under his feet like shards of glass. In a different cavern, he heard a wailing banshee's cry. It made him clench his fists and growl deeply from his throat.

"Are your best out looking?" spoke a smooth voice. He snapped his head up, scowl permanently implanted, to see a half-lidded, seemingly half _-caring_ woman in a white-and-gold-trimmed dress with braided-back hair and bare feet climbing the slopey surface of an upside-down dentary that was at least twelve feet long. She stood once on the top of it, and stared, unreadably blank, at him.

"It has already been done," he curtly replied. "I should think you, with all of your tricks, would be capable of curbing such a megillah before it turns disastrous!"

"No," she very simply said. His eyebrows lifted, but not in genuine surprise. _Feigned_ surprise, disguising a mock. "I use my magic to help no one but us, mind you. It helps in no way that the targeted object of it must be vast and deserving of its ensnarement. The beast is split apart! It would rip veins from my head to host a grip strong enough to reel all three of its components back in!"

"And they _knew that_!" he snarled, hardly pulling a flinch from her.

She pinched the fabric of her dress at the knees to gracefully sit, mimicking a curtsy until her legs were dangling and her hands were folded in her lap. "My husband, they are likely leaps and bounds away from one another, and with _reason_. It's all true; they don't want to be found, and they know the ins and outs of this realm very well. They know of the spell I could potentially use to bring them home, if only they were in the right position..." It was her turn to clench her fist.

"What they need is to be spurred," he said, with less malice this time. He said it casually, like a passing comment to a friend. Or a wife. "Be pushed into one another, and driven, like sheep. They've grown crafty over the years, but I am and always will be a step ahead."

" _Or_ ," she began to counter, catching his ear and making him turn on his heel to face her with hands still inclined philosophically, "the newer inventions of the humans may aid you. Or have you forgotten that that _is_ and always _will be_ what your beast is? An invention-- an experiment?"

"Operation Charlie was not a favor I was overjoyed at seeing be done."

"Yet, here you are, having had that frothing brute in the mouth of your dungeon for so long that you are torn at the idea of parting with it. There are prosthetics you can walk on, and just might take a liking to come time for the dilemma to be solved."

"That is... ridiculous. I have branded Cerberus! I've made him mine! He no longer has the fingerprints of humans on him."

"Oh, but he does now," she wryly said, "and there is nothing but to do but start all over again, and make use of the advantages we have now. I have the means of picking up signals from the ones affected by the Operation; perhaps you can spare for a second squadron to send to the top?"

He snorted at the idea, but his spouse's hips sashaying out of the enclosed boneyard after sliding down off the dentary held his attention-- and, additionally, the words their owner spoke existed and remained in his mind right alongside their allure.

Fate landed him, her, and a fleet of shadowy lumps with eyes around an ordinary-looking wood bowl that was sparking from the inside and making tiny, odd sounds, like a moth bumping a lightbulb.

"... _know this is just for lock picking purposes, right_ _?_ " a rough voice spoke from the depths of it, making everybody start in mere comprehension.

" _Sure. I forgot_ ," replied another, more nasally-sounding voice, complacent in tone.

Quick eye contact was made among individuals sitting in. The robed man turned on a dime, the bridge of his nose wrinkling like that of a snarling tiger's as he addressed the gathered monsters: "Locate these voices. Send a message back when you do so that I may surface wherever they happen to be."

"Surface? On _Earth_ , Lord Hades?"

"There _are_ pawns to push. Let it never be said that the needs of _my_ upkeep are inferior to anyone else's, because this just isn't true; I take what the waking world no longer wants. It is my role to play, my burden to bear. When I lose the tool that helps me most in the action of this, it very suddenly becomes my concern to right the wrong before any other.

I don't yet know why my guard left. I treated him with kindness-- love, even. I can't say my heart is broken, but his surely is; unraveling would have been impossible otherwise. Mayhaps they need my guidance more than they know..."

 

* * *

 

_"_ _Clocking my time as finished_

_The same is all replacements_

_Ignorance is complacency_

_Why I am purposely faded_

_No stand, no sit, no stopping_

_Ripping through the neon prophecies..."_

The music came out of a small wall speaker hitched to the front of the building. Dean sat in the truck by himself with the door partly open, listening. Seth stood by the front door to The Vulgar Crow, back leaning against the bricks and arms crossed, waiting for Roman to come back out. He was returning the pool cue to the rowdy joint, but they were following through with Dean's idea to just lay low and chill for the night.

Dean was feeling... _off_ , ever since Corbin decided to push his buttons. Bar brawls and off-key singing didn't sound so appealing anymore.

The sidewalk wasn't overly populated tonight. It was bathed in orange and red lights from the welcome sign, only occasionally shadowed by walking legs of a few people straggling on their way home.

After a few minutes, Roman reemerged, nodding along to the tune playing both outside and inside, and regarding Seth's immediate question of, "How's Stevie doin?'"

"He'd be punching your face in right now if he heard you call him that," Roman replied through a laugh.

"Right, right. I take it he's fine, then?"

They both got back in the vehicle. Right before Dean was about to shut his door, he heard a curious noise. A soft, crooning noise, drifting down the sidewalk and floating over shorter, stouter buildings. It echoed just out of reach of coherency. Whiny and elongated. Almost kind of... _sad_.

At first, he thought it was coming from the song. But the little breaks within it and this strange sound's persistence made him think it was coming from somewhere else.

"You hear that?" he asked, still having yet to shut his door.

Roman looked at him. "Hear what?"

He listened for it again, but at some point during his asking and Roman's counter-asking, it stopped completely and all he heard was the bar's music again. The people inside Vulgar Crow were shouting raucously, like a fight was going down. Gentle traffic deeper into the city and some absent wind that carried no weird noises with it. The middle brother coughed into his hand.

"Yeah, no, it was nothin' I guess." He shut his door finally, and they were driving off again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lyrics in the last bit of this chapter are from the song "I'll Be Around" by The Growlers. :)


	4. In Over Our Heads

 

 

* * *

 

Roman stopped the truck before a small, unassuming building. Its lights were off and its windows dark from the inside looking out. No other cars joined them on this street, and as they opened their doors and got out, all was silent. An ambulance's scream pierced the air and traffic light beams projected onto the pavement, but all was still apart from these lively disruptions. They were in a quiet pocket of the city, unbothered.

"...Anyway," Seth continued his spiel after a short pause spent drinking in the unusually quiet atmosphere of their home street, "I'm just saying that if it had been _Parodi's_ blueprints traded off to Blake, the poor idiot wouldn't've been able to get them back. He didn't have _you_ for a partner." He gave Dean a nudge to the side after he said the words.

The compliment-- or whatever the hell it was-- didn't get much of a reaction out of Dean. The two men stepped up onto the curb together and Roman brought up the rear, looking around tentatively. It was true Rude Street was always a little subdued, a little on the murky and mysterious side... but never this _still_.

"A partner, you say?" Dean belatedly said, flicking his eyes at Seth briefly. "You mean a partner who stupidly trades his blueprints away to begin with?"

"The very same kind, yeah," Seth answered.

_Rumblerumble._

**_SMASH!_ **

The sound made all three of them jump. It came from across the street. A steel slatted garbage can fell over the opposite curb and rolled against the fender of a parked car, spilling gross contents. It was terribly noticeable in contrast to everything else.

Roman was the first to dart his eyes up from it, honing in on the half-outline standing in the threshold of the alley directly behind the mess. _It_ flinched at the sight of them, receding back into the shadows.

It was... hunched over and _rough_. It didn't quite look like a person. Somehow more descriptive to refer to it as a "thing," except it was _breathing_.

Roman didn't allow a minute to pass. "Did you see that?"

Dean placed his hands on his hips and looked in the same direction, obviously not seeing anything now.

"See what?" Seth asked instead.

 

* * *

 

"Augh... ooogh... AH, _damn_!"

For what it was worth, Dolph was keeping the cussing mild. It was clear he was in more pain than he cared to admit, and the tense group he walked with could visibly tell. The young man could scarcely take any steps without a falter or shudder.

Curly placed his hand on the back of the blond's neck, squeezing lightly. "Ay, mijo, are you sure you're gonna be good walking the rest of the way? There's muscle to waste here; we can carry you without trouble."

Dolph halfheartedly swatted his touch away, snorting. "Don't 'ay, mijo' me, Ricci. You _just saw_ how much punishment I could take back there. I could take a helluva lot more if I needed to."

"The night is _over_ , Mr. Ziggler."

"Yeah." The younger huffed disdainfully and kept on, holding his right arm with his left hand. The little girl with the bandanna around her head hurried up to walk by his side, hooking him by the broad bend of his arm with her small fingers.

"Hey, I say we wait a few days ta rest an' _then_ strike back!" she said, enthusiastically. "Them three goons won't see it comin,' since they're so full of themselves."

"Yeah, you- you know what? I'm with her!" Ziggler yelled, jabbing his thumb at her face and making her blink. "We haven't proved ourselves enough of a threat in a good, _long_ while."

"We're no 'threat,' Dolph," Curly argued. "I'm a dad to a little five-year-old who doesn't even know any of this is happening! _You're_ a stand-up comedian who mows his grandmother's lawn for her. _Sure_ , we've got our protectors-- _you_ being one of them; don't get me wrong. But we've also got our pregnant ladies, our elderly, our _children_ \--"

"So why shouldn't we _protect them_ from ugly-hearted men who won't let them cross the railroad tracks?!" exclaimed Dolph. "Break into their garages, _take things_ that aren't theirs, bully kids and mock injuries _they_ inflicted to begin with?!"

The five other people walking with them ground to a fast halt, because Ziggler and Curly Hair certainly had. The two men stared each other down a moment before the older replied, in a calm, tension-resolving voice:

"Is the reason we're out here _not_ because you wanted to go play with fire and venture out past the tracks?"

Ziggler didn't have a response. He just continued to stare, albeit with a wavering gaze.

"They bother us once-- twice?-- every two or three months. That's if we keep our heads low and enjoy our own lives-- _Lord knows_ they're happier than the lives those dirty Helmsmen lead. Yes, I _know_ which three you were talking about when you named off all that stuff." He started walking again, prompting a few hesitant people to follow him down the sidewalk.

"I know you like to bring that Tory kid around with you. I'd better not catch you with my little Janelle going anywhere near those criminals, you understand?"

Ziggler finally unstuck himself from the ground, sounding no less angry as he hurried after his clique: "How stupid do you think I am, man?"

Their yelling resonated through the city all the way back home.

 

* * *

 

" _Haunted_. We're haunted! I will say it's been a pleasure treating other people like trash with the two'a you."

 _Typical Ambrose,_ thought Roman. He had yet to find his voice this morning, so he did what he usually did and listened to his two teammates banter about this and that. The conversation had only just escalated into yelling by the time they reached the rail yard, teeming with massive freight cars laid in seemingly endless rows. Unmoving on several lengths of track, side by side.

Grayish clouds were rolling in. It should have set the mood for them to work properly, but their very _beings_ were proving difficult to rein in today. Matters of personal concern were _not_ matters you brought to work. Not at _this_ job!

"We're not haunted, Dean. Who would wanna haunt us, huh? We're boring as hell," Seth returned.

They stopped in time with each other, taking in the sight of Bold backing out of the rustic, old building along the curve of one of the outer tracks they approached, holding a mess of wires. Or, rather, _tripping_ out of. Falling.

The techie landed with a grunt. Wire fell on top of and around him like spilled guts.

"Dude, get your act together," Roman chided. Shaun sighed. The much bigger of the two sauntered over and bent at the waist, grabbing handfuls of the stuff and lifting it away. Shaun arched a brow, and seemed taken aback by the humorous smile on his captain's face.

"Uh-huh," he hesitantly said, picking himself up off the ground. "I'm not the one needing to rev myself up today. Seth's got a game plan to enlighten us all with, and you three gotta do your 'face time' thing. A message for Von Bell."

"A message for _Winston Reba_ , Bold," corrected HHH from seemingly out of nowhere, making all of them turn. The bleach blond shrunk more under the steely eyes of his ripped boss and struggled to argue.

"W-Winston...? Um, Sir, with all due respect..."

"I know what you're gonna say," the older calmly interrupted him. "'It's not smart, it's counterproductive'-- whatever. I need my three _gifts_ over here to warn them about what'll happen if they try to profit off our little quarrel-within-the-ranks goin' on." He gestured gallantly to Roman, Dean, and Seth. "No one puts the fright in anyone better than my boys; especially when they're seen together."

"Gifts," Roman repeated the word, crossing his arms and smiling thoughtfully. "That's sweet."

"Yeah, well, I wouldn't let it go to your head. Wipe that smirk off your face."

"Know what? I may just keep it."

"Strong will. Save it for the big fights, all right? You're gonna do what I say today."

"Huh, yeah. Understood." Roman gave a lenient nod. In truth, he'd only been joking around, but when he really thought about it, Helmsley was a better joker than he could ever be.

"Joking around" certainly wasn't what _he_ was for.

"You wanna know what got me gettin' the three of you up at the ungodly hour that I did?" their boss asked, and then didn't wait for an answer. "It was Winston's men breakin' into a storage room of ours last night. I'll let you determine what it was they took-- or _thought_ they took."

"Hahaha. _Damn_ those guys are dumb," chuckled Seth.

They started inside the equipment shack with rejuvenated sour moods. It was up for debate why Shaun thought it was necessary to make small talk with them instead of paying attention to the wires left laying in the middle of the floor:

"On the off chance you three even took a glance out your windows after the night you had yesterday, did you see the way the sky looked?"

"Oh," Helmsley chimed in again, poking his head through the doorway a minute after departing their little 'gathering,' "you mean the green clouds? Perfectly normal, I'll bet. Von Bell didn't steal our stuff for nothing."

"Hell yeah we saw it," Seth replied. He kicked a packed-and-taped cardboard box off a much heavier crate and got seated, squinting through his hair at the unanticipated beam of bright sun that came in through the skylight above their heads. "You know, a break from magic of any kind would be real nice. Just... three weeks. No curses, no levitation--"

"--just your boots and a few walls that need kickin' in," Roman finished for him, concurring.

"Yeah, yeah, that. Basics. You think a world exists somewhere where magic isn't normal?"

"It's called 'Grapple City,' homeboy," Dean very plainly said. He rolled his eyes, like the inquiry was nothing but dumb in them. He just as quickly shifted his focus to brushing down his pants and tightening the laces on his boots, ignoring Seth's pointed, 'you don't gotta be like that, man,' face.

While Grapple City _was_ where they resided, a majority of the work they did for Hunter was done on the outskirts of downtown or residential life. Regular citizens who _didn't_ spend their time warring with opposing gangs would more than likely balk if you told them enchanted objects were a thing.

Bold took in the short bout of interaction with an air of uncertainty. Not too many gangmates were privy to their superiors' more private conversations these days, and anyone caught eavesdropping was fair game to knock the lights out of; Ambrose usually obliged. _Unless_ your presence was something that was invited, like Bold's often was-- not by choice, but because his expertise was relevant to the particular... thing... Helmsley had them doing.

It was this (trademarked!) intimidation method that worked for some reason. Granted its secret wasn't completely lost on Roman; he knew what he was doing. It was just a little amusing to him that two years worth of basically _adlibbing_ in front of a camera was as effective as it was for keeping Rebamen and the like off their asses. Ziggler's group was too smart to even bother calling their bluff.

"Do you wanna go over it again before we start?" Shaun asked them from his spot over by the camera lens. The room was a mess of tech and coding scrawled on scraps of torn paper laying around haphazardly. The gloom coming in through the skylight made the space no less dark, save for the light coming from Bold's laptop screen. He didn't need to see to know what he was doing anymore.

"It isn't some _routine_ , Shaun," Seth huffed. "It comes from the heart, all right? Ergo: my boy Ambrose over here. Takes the words right outta Roman and myself's mouths half the time. King of the Quips!"

"You know me too well," said Dean, not very affectionately.

Shaun wrung his hands and glanced from left to right before going on to speak again. "Cap'n, Helmsley told me to make sure you were clear on not going off topic on this one." His 'Cap'n' was directed solely at Seth, who placed an incredulous hand over his chest.

"Me? Go off topic?"

"Yes. He thinks you'll start off talking about Reba and then move into 'threatening Von Bell' territory, and he said we can't have that."

"Why couldn't we have that?" Roman distractedly asked, as he moved a mop to the corner of the room to give them leeway and better atmosphere.

"I don't know. I'd reckon he wants the element of surprise, but you know him; it could be anything. Probably best to just listen to him, though, right?"

"Heh! It's like you _haven't_ known us for three solid years, Bold." Rollins slapped him on the back, making him stumble forward. "If we ever screwed things up, we fixed it, 'cause we're still here, right?"

Bold seemed apprehensive about that statement, but he didn't argue. When did he _ever_ win arguments against them?

The architect covered his face with his gloved hands and sucked in air through his clenched teeth, psyching himself up. "All right, all right, I'm ready. You boys ready?"

Roman nodded. "Yeah, let's own it."

Dean made a grunt of a noise that meant yes.

"Now, uh... _remember_ that those clowns just tried to steal goods last night. Thought we had our hands tied with other engagements, and we wouldn't fight back. It's your jobs to let Winston Reba know how wrong he was."

"Right, right..."

-

"Seth Rollins."

"Roman Reigns."

"Dean Ambrose," came the last introduction-- although the ones receiving this message knew who they were very well. "And you wanna know somethin' Helmsmen can't stand? It's guys who stick their noses in business that isn't theirs. Winston, you already tried to stab us while we were on the ground. I can't imagine what you must do to people you _don't_ like."

Seth mirrored the sick smile his brother wore to both undermine and unsettle. "Helmsmen dig themselves into deep holes; it's practically in the job description. But something we _never_ do is stay in them for long, and if that failed attempt at thievery was your best shot, we're not sweating. Either you're _really_ bad, or we're _really_ good. I personally like the sound of both."

"Helmsmen don't steal from you unless you steal first," Roman carried on. "So, what it sounds like to _me_ is:  we got some heavy stealin' to do. Not all in one night, not all in one year; that isn't enough time for how hard and long we're gonna hit every group who's crossed the Helmsmen, _and_ The Shield. Believe that."

-

"Ha. Really, Roman? You're layin' down 'The Shield' thing? That's a thing now?" asked Dean.

Roman shrugged. "I sorta like it."

"You're in a minority, brother," said Seth.

Bold looked up from his laptop screen. "I mean, regardless of what you're calling yourselves, the message is out there. It comes as no surprise to Winston, and Helmsley knows that. What's even better than being someone's worst nightmare? ...Being an inconvenience, I say."

Seth sighed wistfully. "Inconveniencing people. I love it."

"Now you gotta do the opposite of that." Roman looked to the opposite wall, not completely surprised to see Helmsley back again, leaning against it.

Seth looked up at his superior and grinned, understandably unnerved. "Man, you're just... creepin' in the woodwork today, aren'tcha?"

Helmsley maintained a masterful poker face. "You wanna know _why_ I didn't want you calling out Von Bell?"

"Not... particularly."

"It's because I know he doesn't take getting confronted very well. Sees it as a challenge I'm not certain you or any of the Helmsmen can handle-- though the reason the three of you got your name was because you sparred with a barghest and won, so maybe I'm just being overprotective by this point."

Seth raised an index finger to cut in. "Uhhhmm, but... we _didn't_ \--"

"I'm sorry, man-- I'm lost," Dean interrupted, sounding drowsy. The floorboards creaked beneath the feet of the group as weight shifted and a lone train whistle sounded outside the building. Helmsley swallowed an audible lump and looked down.

"See, Von Bell isn't exactly..."

Seth's interest was visibly piqued. "Rich? Bad?"

"Innocent?" grunted Dean.

Helmsley rolled his eyes, obviously mildly irritated at best by the guesses he never asked for. "... _Human_. The word I was looking for was _human_."

"Huhuh, what? Now you're not makin' much sense."

"It's not complicated. Cohen is an evil, blood-sucking creature from a land I can't even pronounce the name of. He just looks enough like a human to pass for one, and I'm pretty sure the guy doesn't have a feral bone in his body, so, at the end of the day, he's what I'd call ' _half_ -human.'"

Roman never felt more in his life like speaking, and yet he couldn't find the words. He never heard Helmsley talk _like_ this, or _about_ this, and it was weird that he would say things like this to them around Bold. The status of another person wasn't a secret from the rest of the gang, so maybe it could get a pass... even though Roman had never met a more spineless person than Cohen Von Bell, and this all sounded like a great big joke...?

"I mean... if what you're saying is true," Seth argued, "you sicced us on him. How is that not confrontation?"

"You didn't make eye contact, and neither did I. Cohen is more dangerous than any of you ever suspected, and you don't want to meet the side of him that we can't classify as human. I apologize for not telling you sooner, yadda yadda yadda..."

He raised a brow at the absent stares he was receiving. Bold's eyes were comically round as he edged behind Dean and Seth to get to the door, knowing instantly that this talk wasn't for him. Roman crossed his arms and held his boss' eyes, lips pursing.

"What-- after all the magic you three have seen, and the idea of a seemingly ordinary human being partly _not_ -human astounds the crap outta you?"

"You can't talk about something like this and make it sound normal!" Dean said in return, almost laughing. "Not _ever_."

"How often do I screw around? You'd be wise to mirror me, actually."

 _Well, I mean, if he's_ ordering _us to,_ Roman reasoned in his head.

Dean leaned in, mouth pulling at the corners. "Is that for, like, _every_ occasion-- mirroring you? Can I carry around a hammer and name myself something that also begins with an H? Like Harry?"

His brothers smiled, because it didn't take much for Dean to make them do that. To the collective surprise of all of them, so did Helmsley.

"Just don't look Cohen Von Bell in the eye, all right?" he managed, rubbing tiredly at his eyelid but, still, smirking.

 

 

Later in the day, Helmsley sent Roman and Dean off-- out of the yard entirely-- to go weigh in on something of a sparring circle alongside a set of active train tracks en route for a more rural area outside the city. He kept Seth behind to talk with him alone. It was most probably about the plan the self-proclaimed architect pitched to all the nerd brains in the gang a little under an hour before.

Now, Roman was sitting on a metal barrel with his chin in his hand, watching Dean kneel in the dirt and drive his elbow down into Greg's upper back with a sick smile. A literal dust cloud was being kicked up where the two scuffled, causing many of the spectators to squint and wave away the worst of it.

Jimmy Parodi-- one of the newest additions to the gang-- was watching with a quirked eyebrow and cocked head, like he didn't understand the merit of a good throwdown. "Do all gangs in the city rely on physicality in combat?"

"'S'only _three_ ," grunted Dean, grabbing Dockins by the impossibly short roots of his hair and pulling back, "and on an unrelated note, what other kind of combat training would be implemented, Jim?"

"Like the- the kind where you don't gotta touch the man you're fighting."

"Magic. Boom." The instant the words were out of Dean's mouth, Greg powered out of the hold he had him in and flipped his superior over. Dean's shoulders were pinned to the ground for all of three seconds before he kicked out. "There's no other form of combat besides the two, 'm pretty sure."

Jimmy rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "What about guns?"

Dockins gasped out-- possibly because of the way Dean slammed the sole of his boot into the back of his knee, but also possibly in reaction to what the new guy said. Roman looked up at the last word, and Dean snapped his head around, eyes glinting angrily. A hushed silence fell over the group, and Jimmy was looking around at all of them with barely concealed anxiety.

"We... don't... _use_ guns, compadre," Ambrose said, deadly serious. He glanced back down at Greg, eyelids fluttering as he groaned. "Honestly, did Hunter burn the book I wrote on Helmsmen etiquette?"

"Guns aren't our way, Parodi," Roman followed up on his brother's point. "We don't use 'em, and we sure as hell don't kill. Rebamen are the same."

"Oh." Jimmy's voice was small, but he didn't apologize for slipping up; doing so would dig him into an even deeper hole.

The fight resumed with minimal talking and only yells and growls from the two partaking. Roman was glazing over in all honesty; the scandalous talk about firearms was the only thing that made watching it interesting before. His subordinates could read his mind, it seemed, because a new, less juicy but altogether comfortably distracting conversation began with Ethan at the helm.

"I gotta say," the younger twin of Elgin said to Roman's right, making him turn his head with an ill-humored frown, "it seems like Rollins' always got a plan for everything."

"It's his job," Roman replied, unblinking. His eyes returned to the fight in short order. "That's why Hunter prizes him, y'know. You can't always find a guy who can conjure up a game plan in his sleep the way Seth does."

"Word," Dean chimed in, having gotten up off the ground after winning his spar with Dockins and sitting down next to the barrel, running his palms over his hair in an attempt to put the strands mussed out of place by the roughhousing back where they originally were. "Seth doesn't gotta think about what he's gonna say. His mind sorta just... _defaults_ to the best possible reac--"

"...tion."

His momentary pause made Roman look at him questionably. He followed the younger's gaze to the apparent thing that made him add it, and wasn't disappointed in terms of explanation.

On the other side of the tracks and over a shallow stretch of land that sloped low, an old-timey gas station stood with its back to the cracked road. By one of its pumps was a car, and by the car?

Ziggler.

Well, Ziggler, and some kid in a red shirt and blue jeans. The two had their backs to the sparring circle, seeming to be talking animatedly with each other. This kid looked young; nine or ten-ish. Roman certainly never saw him before.

How in the hell did the blond figure it was a good idea to be this close so soon after what happened to him just the night before? Hunter beat the crap out of him! It was either pure guts or stupidity, or both.

Roman looked at Dean, who was looking right back at him. The two exchanged malicious squints, and suddenly they were both on their feet, making Ethan tense his muscles like he thought he was required to do the same.

As if! He would just kill the vibe they were going for.

"All y'all... don't move a muscle," Roman instructed him, and everyone present besides Dean. "Dean 'n me-- we got a meeting. Keep working."

 

 

"Well, _well_..."

Dolph turned around with a meaningful glare. His eyes settled on Dean first, but when Roman looked the boy's way, he noticed that particular pair of eyes jumping to _him_ first. Some hardly hidden fear could be seen there. He got hastily shoved behind Ziggler's back.

That cheeky smirk was back in place on Dean's mug as he strutted right on up to the silver Sedan, rapping his knuckles on the hood. "You're a while away from home. Hope this isn't your only means of transport, 'cause if it is, you don't got nearly enough backup."

"Do Helmsmen travel in pairs now?" Ziggler asked, ignoring the observation.

"You better hope," answered Roman. He stalked around them, opposite Dean, making sure Ziggler was sufficiently flanked. Their blond adversary turned in time with his movements, keeping the kid behind him. In this case, backed against the car door.

Dean smiled menacingly down at the boy, warm with the knowledge that Ziggler was in too feeble a state to protect him. "I don't think we've had the pleasure _._ "

"I don't... think so either," the child returned, panicky eyes darting around. Roman noticed his edgy clutch on Dolph's shirt, small knuckles whitening. He was hiding his chin and mouth in the collar of his shirt when he made unsteady eye contact with Dean.

"Yeah. This is my buddy, Roman. He's got a knack for making sure people do what we tell them to do." Dean leaned against the car by mere forearm, eyes lifting just in time to notice the scathing glare Dolph was giving him over his shoulder. He then returned his attention to the kid, and was surprised to see a flicker of malcontentedness leering back at him. It didn't make him change his pace one bit. "I'm Dean. I come up with the big ideas. You'd be hard-pressed to find a guy who schemes better than I do."

"All right. That's just gnarly, guys. Would you mind backing off now? I dunno if you've noticed, but we're not on your turf today. Far from it," Dolph said. He had the boy he was traveling with by the wrist in seconds, gently pulling him around to have him in front of him. The kid flinched when Roman took a step closer, fluffy brown hair bouncing atop his head.

Dark eyebrows rose in thoughtful warning. "You may very well be."

"I _know_ we're not," Ziggler countered. "Believe me."

Roman ignored the kid gawking up at him, eyes trained solely on the blond. Another step and they would be bumping chests. "Somehow _this_ is smart in your book. It's not only unsafe for the two of you; it's disrespectful to us."

" _Someone's_ gotta treat the rules like they aren't there, right?" He squeezed out from between the Big Man and the car, tugging the boy along with and kicking up gravel. There was no tease in his words or expression. His eyes were dark with sheer dislike for them. "That's not specifically _why_ I'm here, of course... but it could ' _very well be_ ,' as you might put it," he sneered.

Dean cracked another devious smile. "Hoho. A personal issue it is, then. For you, _and_..." He trailed off, lingering on that last name for a lack of one.

"Tory," the child bit out, bravely. Dolph looked down to him sharply, seemingly caught off guard by his sudden input.

Dean sobered up a great deal and teetered forward into an intimidating lean toward the kid, returning his tight glare. "Sure you wanna volunteer, Sport?"

"Oh, I'm certain he's got more spine than you ever did," Dolph answered for his little buddy, seizing him by the shoulders and moving him a safe distance away before there was a grabbing hazard of any kind. Roman narrowed his eyes as they passed, watching them very obviously go around to the other side of the car to get in it. He didn't think the blond's actions deserved a pass from them, but he didn't entirely blame the boy for being there. His shorter-haired partner, on the other hand, was quite of the opposite train of thought.

Dean gritted his teeth. He made a quelled, not-very-swift advancement on the two, but Roman intervened this time, physically holding him back. 'Tory' was looking up his way and Dean was glaring daggers across the length of the car at him. The intensity of his scowl only grew when he noticed the slight, satisfied smile that budded on the little snot's face.

 _That_ did it.

Dean surged against Roman's arms, twitching and fuming. His efforts stalled when an echoed shout-- presumably from Ethan-- reached his ears, and Roman was okay with letting go of him. They turned around and listened confusedly to the harsh popping-off noises that came from back in the train yard, or near it. A series of considerably small explosions, loud enough to hear but not as loud as a box of TNT. It almost sounded like a...

"Is somebody firing guns over there?" Ziggler asked them. Roman chose not to regard the question, searching frantically for Parodi in the sparring group they just left. He saw him running with the others back to the train yard, no gun in hand.

"I just thought you guys didn't _do_ guns, is all," the blond explained, evidently unable to help himself.

"Yeah, we _don't_!" Dean snapped at him. "But I wonder how many of your buddies do! All they ask outta you is to draw us away from the pack!"

"Dean," Roman said. His heart was hammering and he _really_ hoped the fear he was feeling wasn't visible on his face. "We got no time for this crap. We need to scram."

A murmured conversation behind them arose about the matter as he took off, leaving Dolph and the kid to do as they pleased. He was relieved when Dean dropped his disruptive spite and started running with him, because there was no doubt in Roman's mind that _his_ thoughts were reeling, too.

Wherever the gunshots were coming from, Seth was in the middle of it.


	5. Metamorphosing

Sawdust fell from the ceiling and showered Seth's hair when a train rushed past the yard. He waited until the deafening sound faded before opening his mouth, about to respond to Helmsley's risen brows and expectant expression.

"It's... very simple, really. We just--" ...and, to his credit, he _did_ start. Another loud sound-- or, rather, a series of sounds-- assaulted their ears from right outside. Not a train; these were short, individual _bangs!_ Each and every one garnered a flinch from not only Seth's face, but his whole body.

 

 

Actually, the sound was so foreign in contrast to the sounds Seth heard on a daily basis that he had trouble making it out at first.

_It's right on the edge of my brain..._

Helmsley, on the other hand, turned quickly to face the doorway. He knew what it was right away.

"What's goin' on?" asked Seth, in a small voice.

His boss replied, in lieu of a sigh, "Nothing you don't know about, Rollins. Come on." He beckoned with his hand and started moving, but Seth had to resist stalling; not something he struggled with often, and especially not when he was acting in response to a direct order.

He heard the unmistakable sound of Parodi screaming fearfully. It put him in the uninformed mindset that whatever the problem was, it wasn't anything _he_ had to worry about. But... he _was_ sorely mistaken, as he came to realize when he reached the threshold looking out.

"I'll take care of this," Helmsley said to his right. He didn't take his eyes off the spectacle that was a fairly burly man with a small handgun standing in the center of the classification yard, aiming the weapon at anyone who got too close-- which didn't add up to a whole lot of gangmates. Seth's blood was running cold watching it until he noticed something rather familiar about the dude: his dyed green hair.

He backhanded his boss' arm persistently. "Hey, hey, wait, I think I know that guy."

"Whether you know him or not, Seth, he's threatening our lives."

"No, no, I just mean he might not be that big of a threat. He's a piece of crap... I think."

"We're not going on what you 'think' _might_ be important, Rollins."

It was the last thing Helmsley said to him before he dove into the fray. Seth watched him go with a pounding pulse and darted his eyes around the gravelly landscape, mouth hanging partially open. Had it not been, he would have forgotten to breathe.

He didn't value this thug's life. He wasn't trying to downplay the threat of a gun in _anyone's_ hand. All he knew was that this guy wasn't from any gang he knew about, and this attack was suspiciously without knowable reason.

To his great relief, he spotted Roman and Dean running behind the incompleted chain link fence along one side of the yard. He would have backup soon, just short of finding the idea of bailing favorable. Helmsmen were loyal, but they were also smart... which didn't always mean courageous.

_Well, Hunter_ did _say he would take care of it._ Seth looked up again, watching Helmsley approach this familiar stranger with hands held out in front of him, taking it slow. Helmsmen watched on all sides, clearly intimidated. It was then that Seth revelated: _Wait a second, that's **Isaac**!_

Isaac Malone; a face he never wanted to see again, honestly. His dislike for the green-haired man was only mimicked to perfection by his two brothers-- particularly Dean, who shared Seth's run-in with Malone in equal measure.

He had a gun back then, too, except he was warning them about a whole new gang led by him. But as Seth panned his eyes around the freight yard, he saw no backup for the apparent gang leader.

The guy was presumed crazy anyway, and rightfully so.

Muffled speech from both Helmsley and Malone made Seth want to get closer. Even with the sound of boots gunning for his heels, he started walking over, slow enough to avoid looking like he was advancing. A pair of hands slammed down on his shoulders from behind, but he didn't turn, knowing whose hands they were merely by feel.

"Whoooaa, is that Isaac?" asked Dean, directly into Seth's ear.

"Yes."

Roman took up stance beside them, looking ready to lunge forward at a moment's notice. "What's he doing around here?"

Seth couldn't hide the bitterness in his voice: "Being a crazy person."

He still didn't stop moving, edging closer to the exchange everybody else was trying to steer clear of. Dean moved with him, limiting his hands to only one of Seth's shoulders. His glare could be felt beaming down on Seth's very _path_.

"I know now," they heard Hunter say. "One of my captains, Rollins, told me you looked familiar. He spared the details way back when, when he told me about you. You were like a cowardly myth I couldn't picture."

"It's of no interest to me what those three _lackeys_ of yours think of me!" Isaac's deep, rough voice pierced through them all like the most inconvenient, annoying knife. "I told you what I'm here for. Give them up!"

"Ehh, Sir?" grunted Seth, making Helmsley snap around with a raised eyebrow, entirely unsurprised to find his three captains right behind him. "What _is_ he here for?"

Another strange moment for it, but their boss smirked widely, motioning to Malone with his sledge hammer in nonchalance. "Says he's looking for 'the ones marked by Norminall.' Three dudes, tops. You know anybody like that, boys?"

Seth looked to Isaac again, brows furrowing. The man's button-down shirt shook in the last cool wind of spring, and the muscles in his wrist moved under his skin as he fingered the trigger of his firearm.

"Normin... all? I've heard of that before..."

Not just heard, but _saw it_ somewhere. But where? The longer he pondered it, the more Helmsley's smile slipped. Seth panicked internally and blurted, just for the sake of speaking, "I-isn't Norminall like a... brand of clothing, or something? Hoodies?"

Isaac's expression darkened. Hunter's smirk returned as he swiveled back around to look him in the eye.

"The men you're looking for _aren't_ Helmsmen, Malone. They sure as hell aren't here, no matter how many of us you pop with that gun."

Seth smiled cockily and shook off Dean, taking another step forward. "Seems to me like you've been spendin' a little too much time in that printing press warehouse, Malone. You know, with all of your _made-up_ lackeys?"

He wasn't expecting to regret saying it quite as soon as he did. In Isaac's case, a man holding a gun _definitely_ made you forget how physically imposing he was, as Seth relearned lightning quick when his and his gangmates' shared foe sped forward faster than he could blink and grabbed him by the bun he tied earlier in the day, ready to do harm.

Before Isaac could raise his gun to do _anything_ , Helmsley swung his sledge hammer back and drove it mercilessly into the madman's gut, making him let go and double over after grunting sharply. Seth felt Dean wrap his arms around his torso and pull him back, and Isaac crumpled to the cement after dropping the gun, whining from his throat for how much it hurt.

As soon as it was clear the threat was mollified, every last Helmsmen started milling again, drawing closer to pick the bones. Helmsley kicked the handgun away and held them all at bay with a single hand gesture; a raised palm.

"No one touch him. He'll leave on his own."

He looked down at Malone with narrowed eyes and asked, quieter, "These men 'marked by Norminall'; what'll happen to them when you find them? What makes them so special?"

Isaac was clutching his stomach, eyes settling on the gang leader through a hurt and wary squint. The very instance of his head turning was a might shaky.

"Don't... know..."

Helmsley gave a stiff nod and turned his back on him, stalking away. He made eye contact with Seth, soundlessly asking him, as well as Dean and Roman, to follow him. They obeyed without question-- although Seth was trembling. The only constant was his brothers' arms behind his back, gently pushing him along.

 

 

"Hunter, Sir," he spoke, after his heart had long since stopped racing and his hands stopped quivering, "thank you. And I'm sorry for goading him on like that. What I did was foolish."

"You're welcome. And you don't need to apologize, Seth; it was barely a strain on my wrist. I wanted to before you did anything." Helmsley was flipping through the pages of an old tome he kept around, sitting in the back seat of a jeep Elgin was intending to take the wheel of. He wasn't even looking up.

Dean grew tired of the conversation, but only because his mind was unfocused-- even muddy. Ever since Malone came at Seth, his nails had been buried deep in his palms, not ready to move on with the day. As if his qualm with Corbin the night before wasn't enough!

A large part of him regretted not attacking Isaac once he was floored. Dean wanted to go find the hole he crawled into and kick him in the ribs a few dozen times. They were only about two hours removed from the incident; he was probably still out there.

His thoughts were interrupted by a warm hand on his shoulder. Roman cleared his throat beside him, bringing his other hand around to pat Dean on the chest. Dean was always calmed by the gesture, and despite his current inward turmoil, it didn't fail this time, either.

"I see you all wound up. There's... _literally_ no need to be," the older said, before motioning up the path to Helmsley. "Seth told me Hunter promised he'd take care of everything-- from start to finish. He did, didn't he?"

That was certainly true. Dean never was good at avoiding letting others see him dwell, though. It was... an issue. He hated it.

He hated most things, but Isaac especially. And also Ziggler and that piece of crap kid he already forgot the name of. Dean tossed his shoulders up and took a step forward after giving Roman a squeeze to the arm crook, moving to reach Seth.

"Hey, 'm over today's mess-"

Rollins scoffed, cutting him off as the jeep with Helmsley in it drove away. "No you're not."

"Fair rebuttal. I still don't wanna think about it anymore." He scratched absently at an itch on his nose and watched the hasty retreat from the train yard. He almost forgot it was Saturday and no one was working the rails. "Where'd the boss say we're going next?"

"Austin Co.. While you two were out overseeing the spars, he told me he set Corbin loose on the yard to sniff out an artifact or somethin'-- standard stuff. Y'know, with that killer sense of smell he's got?"

"Yeah, it's weird," Ambrose replied, unblinking. Reigns came up to stand by his side again. They were grouped by the side of the road and every single gangmate who passed them kept their distance. Maybe they were physically incapable of not making jokes about Seth and figured it was for the best.

_...Nah._ Dean doubted it. _Who cares, anyway?_

_Austin Co.. Right._

"I hate that place. The toilets have rust all over them."

Seth rolled his eyes and pushed the older in the back with a firm-- albeit still unaimed-- shove. "A price we must pay. C'mon."

Roman made a face and bumped his brother's shoulder with his own. "You know you're starting to _sound_ like Hunter, right?"

 

 

Under a bridge wherein flaming trash cans were lit and down below the elevated road marking the beginning of the much-less-flashy slums, the spooky silhouette of Austin Co. Warehouse stood against the purple-and-gold sky, filled with wisps of seafoamy clouds. Adjacent to the quiet confines of Sapling Forest. The disappearance of the sun brought routine cold with it again.

They had been there for about three hours. Roman wasn't keeping his distance from Seth on purpose, but the younger man _was_ getting around; speaking to Gregory and Shaun primarily about the tools needed for enacting the plan he proposed for taking back the Globe from Von Bell.

Indeed, he kept his promise about the helicopter scheme. They had yet to follow through, of course, but Seth's plan was a simple steal-back involving whipping propellers and swinging fists; there was something for everybody in it.

"No, see here, Greg," their youngest brother said, with an inflection suggesting he was about to set something straight. "We're gonna need the rope for the drop-down. Every Helmsman _on_ this operation, clad in black, descending on the Von Bell Mansion like frigging spiders."

"Choppers're loud," Greg mused, around the piece of gum he was chewing.

"Yes, but they come and go from there," countered Seth. "Even if he wakes up thinkin' there's been some security breach, he'll think the chopper is his and that his men have everything covered."

Shaun was mopping his face anxiously. "No disrespect meant, Cap'n--"

"Oh boy."

"--but is this need for a helicopter coming from a place of tact? I mean, you're awfully spot-on and precise nine out of ten times on average, but..."

Rollins crossed his arms petulantly. "'But,' _what_? Yeah, watching him make off with our property in a giant flying vehicle hurt my pride a little. So what if I wanna get even? You should, too!"

"I'm just not confident a chopper will get the job done."

"Tch. Another matter entirely," he unthinkingly said, backhanding the air. "It _will_ , all right? I'm not half-cocking this mission. I don't make plans with holes in them."

"Not anymore," said Dean, from his spot by the window, far away from where the conversation was being held. Roman smirked. Seth would admit to that being the truth, too, but not in front of the subs.

His unheard addition to the debate made Roman take his eyes off of it, and move across the large aisle of stacked cargo crates to stand with Dean by the window. As soon as he turned back around, he saw Helmsley walk up to the three, but speak solely to Seth. Roman was too far away now to hear what they were talking about.

"Hey, you remember what Hunter was saying about Von Bell?"

"Yeah, what about it?" Dean distractedly replied, squinting out the window. It was gradually getting too dark to see through, with only the white lines on the parking lot asphalt standing out in the gloom.

Roman watched Seth walk out of sight with their boss and co-workers, humming thoughtfully. "I mean... you think there was any truth to it?"

"Helmsley doesn't lie to us," Dean pointed out, still not looking up. "Why would you think he is?"

"'Cause it's ridiculous," he shot back, nodding very decidedly.

"I dunno, man. I mean, we haven't known Cohen that long. I always thought he was a li'l weird. Plus we see otherworldly crap all the time-- more than we should." There was an air of annoyance to the way he said that last part.

Roman gave his eyes a thorough rolling. "Whatever you think, man."

Their ears perked to the sound of footsteps on the tar floor coming toward them. They looked up and saw Greg returning to the aisle, walking faster than he had been moments before. Dean stood to attention, turning away from the window. Roman met their underling halfway, raising an eyebrow.

"The Boss needs you outside," Dockins explained.

"For what?" He felt Dean's presence lurking behind him. He took those first few steps while he talked, and Dockins kept up fast, walking backwards down the clear pathway.

"I agree! I ask myself that _all the time_." The words were carried on a deep, threatening tone. Roman took a squinty glance at Dean over his shoulder, but neither of them stopped. They followed the man to the exit in silence, unable to help feeling a small bit tentative; it was entirely possible Helmsley told Dockins not to say right away what was going on, which was something he wasn't a stranger to doing.

On the other hand, Dockins' voice had an unmistakably grim tint over it, which insinuated that the thing Helmsley needed them for-- most likely a chore or task of some kind-- would be irritating or strenuous, or just plain time-consuming.

Thinking often prepared Roman for potentially unpleasant things, but what he saw when he stepped out after Gregory into the cold night air was a situation no amount of thinking could ever help him with.

Many eyes leered back at him. Gregory left his side to go join Baron, Ethan, and Elgin. Shaun stood farthest away, with a balking Jimmy cowering behind him. What caught his eye before any of that, though, was Hunter in the middle, _an arm wrapped around Seth's chest from behind_ , daring the next person in front of him to make a move.

Roman hadn't realized he stalled in the doorway until he felt Dean shove past him. The shorter-haired man had his fists clenched and his back practically _arched_ , like he was trying to look bigger.

Seth's hands were held out in front of him and his mouth was opened a slight bit, like he was getting ready to give the explanation they were looking for himself. He _did_ look fearful; just not beside himself.

"Roman, Dean," their boss greeted them instead. "I don't know what you _could_ possibly be thinking right now, but I just want you to know that hurting Seth isn't what I want to do tonight."

Reigns kept his non-restrained brother in his periphery while he spoke, making sure his voice was level and unaffected: "I don't understand any of this. We were nothing but loyal to you."

"You don't seem completely surprised, Roman."

"Oh, I _am_ surprised," he said, leaning forward and widening his eyes. "It's just that I've been taught showing weakness in front of my enemies is wrong. By you, actually."

"Now let's not jump the gun," Helmsley said, as he turned the sledge hammer he used earlier in the day around in his hand. "You don't even know what I want yet."

A fleeting glare passed over Seth's face. Roman watched Dean shrug his shoulders up in majorly _pissed_ fashion and stand almost completely in between the two opposing sides of the conversation, momentarily blocking Roman's view.

"You think we're just gonna stand down-- give you whatever you want 'cause we're your little trained mutts and that's how it's always been 'n you got our man in striking distance?"

"Jumping the gun again, Dean; you're talking like you think I want something that I can hold in my hand. What could the three of you _possibly_ own that's of any worth to me? You're only given things to guard them."

"Some of us are moving up the ranks, boys. Gettin' far past that point," Corbin spoke up, a chuckle stretching his mouth into a grin as he stalked over to Rollins in the clutches of his boss. He patted the architect on the upper arm a few times, hard enough to jostle even Helmsley.

Roman was finding it more and more difficult to keep his rage in check. He stepped up to Dean's side, resting a hand on his tense shoulder-- partly to hold him back from doing anything right away. "Well what the hell _is it_ already?"

Hunter launched right into it: "The gunner from earlier today-- what was he talking about?"

The confusion resurfaced. "You- you asked Seth yourself; he didn't know. None of us know. If we did, we would've told you."

"I'm beginning to think that's not the truth." He pressed the hammer into Seth's stomach, making him let go of an exhale he had evidently been holding in for quite some time. Dean knocked Roman's hand off his shoulder, bracing for a fight.

"Isaac's a gunslinging maniac," hissed Seth. "You would trust _his_ dumb ramblings over our honesty?"

"Never in circumstances that aren't dire," Hunter answered him. "But things being as they are, I need to know: _what is_ Norminall? Why did Isaac show up where he did, on _our_ doorstep, to ask?" He picked his eyes up to glare Roman's way, but his voice was so hushed and menacing, it was almost like he was still talking to Seth. "Why was he looking for _three_ _guys_?"

"We don't know," Roman said, hollowly. Whatever was about to happen, he knew it was going to be quick. _Someone_ wasn't going to go home happy, but at this point it was hard to say who.

Something flickered in Helmsley's eyes. Recognition, or a flash of anger, or grim acceptance...? Maybe it was a combination of all three. He said something like, "All right," but it was all such a blur, Roman couldn't repeat it back even if he thought long and hard about it.

He relinquished Seth with such a sharpness of movement that it was clear he wasn't finished. Without even needing to be told to, Corbin and the Walbert twins grabbed their former superior, seizing him by the arms. Helmsley hit the side of the hammer against his thigh a few times before wrenching it back, full-on breakneck swiftness, and Seth managed a terrified, "No no no!" seconds before that nasty underhook came. The light caught on it, obscuring Roman's view for a split second.

It was all that was needed.

A strange sound then pervaded the air, amid the scuffing and pounding of boots. It was like leather creaking-- like something was stretching out. Elastic-y.

A haze of very faint light brought Roman's attention away from every place he turned to, to face where he should have been looking all along: the place on the ground where Dean was for half a millisecond, his whole 6'4" mass of a body contorted and deformed and engulfed by a dusky glow. And then he was gone as fast as anything.

Roman was already several feet off the curb when a loud, rowdy presence showed up, sounding an infuriated _BARK!_ and barreling past him. He jumped away from it and watched it as it ran much closer to the ground, top speed. Gunning straight for Helmsley.

The goons took into account the disruption all too late, and upon spotting the unidentified object hurtling their way, balked and released Seth.

Seth, who fell back on his ass not necessarily to get out of the way, but because he forgot how to stand. It all happened solely _to_ clear the way for this... _thing_ that streaked over to them like a ball of orange-and-cream sonic power.

The Thing leaped up into the air as high as Helmsley's head and brought the man crashing down to the concrete. A growl drug mercilessly from its throat, surely intent on murder. A bushy tail lashed from side to side. Prickly, bear-like fur. Pinned ears that were pointed at the tips.

"Wh-- um, R-Roman, what's...?" Seth scooted back, taking in the spectacle in thunderstruck quiet with a shielding arm still hovering in front of his torso. Roman rushed to him, dropping to a quick crouch to pick him up by the armpits and lead him back to their side of the standoff, lagging ever so slightly as he did due to the younger's stumbling. Paying no mind to the way Greg and the twins flinched back when he neared them...

The rest of the gang body present all kept their distance, and he couldn't deny he was grateful for it, even if he knew it wasn't for his sake. A daring escape may have been in order in less than a minute's time, anyway.

Hunter was still-motion on the concrete with this carnivorous creature bearing down on top of him, a snarl wrinkling its long snout and its white canines hovering inches above his nose. A miffed, bristly-furred _dog_ that seemed to come out of nowhere. It took its sweet time, its white-toed front paws pressing into his chest. It was standing on him-- either asserting dominance or merely firing a warning shot, that couldn't yet be called.

The sledge hammer was promptly let go of. Their boss looked neither frightened nor angry once it was obvious that _this moment was actually happening_ , but he still didn't dare move. He maintained the eye contact but showed no signs of returned malice.

Roman was going to try something, since that seemed to be the theme of the hour. If it didn't work because of his stupid, faulty thinking, he would have to live with the humiliation it would cause. He was beginning to doubt anybody in the lot even cared right now.

Presuming what he was about to presume meant venturing _miles_ outside of his element. And it was a very fortified, very _steadfast_ element.

"Dean?"

It was probably said in the softest tone he had ever used to address the man in question. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Seth looking to him questionably. To and from the wild animal... that flinched sharply at the name and very slowly turned its head to look over its furry shoulder, away from Helmsley and right at _Roman_.

All animalistic characteristics in the dog's face vanished. Familiar blue eyes gently, _slowly_ blinked in a nod, putting on display some very civil mannerisms for show that only a taught human would know. The creature then jumped off of Hunter, paws dragging on the concrete as it padded away from his downed body like it never once had a qualm with him. Its claws clicked on the floor as it approached the two hesitating in the middle between two parties that wouldn't dare touch this canine with a fifteen foot pole.

"Uh," grunted Seth, expressing uneasiness. Roman almost balked himself, and had to agree; if there was any evidence from their many unlikable brushes with Curly's Doberman, they never had the best time with dogs.

He stuck his hand out nonetheless, not really dwelling too hard on the concept of caution. He presented the back of it, figuring it was an ideal introduction if this dog turned out to be just a dog. But there was nothing demure about the way that fuzzy head crashed into his hand-- almost desperately.

_C'mon, man, we gotta get outta here. Now._ Right _now._

"Let's go," Roman quietly urged, giving Seth a nimble tap to the shoulder. When he snapped around on his heel and started making a run for it, he glanced from left to right on his way, noting with boundless relief that his former gangmates-- who were still spilling out of the warehouse and standing out in the parking lot equally so-- weren't giving chase. They were staring, wide-eyed and tense, after them.

All kinds of bewildered. Roman knew how they felt.


	6. Sense Fest

"I knew it."

"'Knew it?'" questioned Shaun, as Elgin helped their leader to his feet.

"They couldn't have known; they were just as surprised as we all were!" their boss ranted, not answering. He paced one way and then the other, holding his chin in thought. "I was lied to."

"No offense meant, but could you be more clear with us?!" snapped Corbin, as he was, too, visibly shaken by what just happened.

"I was testing them," Helmsley said, in a tired voice. He held the bridge of his nose, sighing through it. "I got what I wanted, but now they're gone. I knew the risks."

Ethan had to scoff. "'Testing?' The Shield Three? Your can-do-no-wrong ' _gifts_?'"

"You heard that?" Helmsley looked his way, seemingly forgetting the topic for a few precious seconds before directing his attention forward again, fingers massaging his temples. "All this time I've been trying to figure them out. Undoubtedly, they're the ones that Malone dude was looking for, and I had a hunch. Whatever 'marked by Norminall' means, that's them. I've never... _threatened_ any of the three of them with physical harm before. I considered it'd drive them away from us, but it sounded like the only thing that might work; to bring out of them what's been 'caged up'-- so to speak-- for so long... Obviously, it _did_ work."

"Ambrose just did magic," Corbin plainly said, stating the obvious.

"I don't know _what_ he just did, Baron." The admittance was followed up by a somber chuckle. Helmsley turned back to the front door of the warehouse after pacing the length of the rectangular parking space he stood in. "I know how big of a change it is, but I'll be assigning practically all of you to new positions tomorrow."

Everyone still looked disgruntled, until the oldest in the group added, with a note of interest in his tone, "You _could_ be promoted." Then they all hurried after him, filing back inside the warehouse.

 

* * *

 

Dean was concerned. He had no trouble keeping up with his brothers, leaping over small boulevards and running under lamp lights. They took a short break behind a row of shrubbery, but he still felt out of sorts.

He wasn't tired; really, he felt quite the opposite. He also felt more sensitive to the fine art of guarding done right, and so he sat several paces away from Roman and Seth, facing the direction they came from, back straightened and eyes trained.

"He _snapped_ ," he heard Seth explaining. "He just got... real bad. I don't know why he cared so much about what Malone was asking for. That wasn't the case earlier today!"

"We shouldn't run ourselves into the ground thinkin' about it tonight," Roman calmly said. "We should be focusing on... you know... this _other_ problem we've got now."

 _Calling, calling... Something's calling and it's so_ loud _._

Even though the high of the action was ebbing, Dean's heart still raced. He could still feel the nervous, ever-crackling energy. Fury, like it was being unnecessarily distributed into his veins even now in spite of the fact that he was pretty darn sure he didn't need it for anything anymore.

Everything _bad_ about how he felt stemmed loosely from his current train of thought. He was confused and so, _so_ afraid. He felt like one half of his brain was already sucked up into a vortex of strange noises and mumblings and... footsteps.

But then, as long as he was looking at Roman or Seth, he could return to himself again. All was well. The sight of them warmed him where the warmth inside mattered most.

Roman was looking at him funny, though. He was looking _down at him_ , for one. Dean was the same height as him-- one inch taller if you wanted to get precise. _Why_ were they not at eye level?

 _Am I crawling?_ He would have initially thought that if he were, he would have been able to tell. He was simply shorter now, but it felt impeccably natural to be short, and it feeling natural didn't _feel_ natural at all!

A vicious circle, to be sure.

Every last little physical sensation and personal urge in him was rallying together as one to do battle with his psyche. It. was. driving. him. _nuts_!

The restlessness wasn't going away, he was shivering, and for the love of all that was holy _what was that NOISE?_

This time, looking up at Roman didn't help. It brought him up to stand on all fours again (Wait, what?) He backed, practically rearing onto his hind limbs (Hind? Why?). His long-haired teammate took one step forward, reaching out to him.

Something was pulling him. His ears were struggling to adjust, but he thought it sounded familiar.

Dean was finished here.

Seth, on the other hand, couldn't help himself from babbling a little more: "Y'know, for a few minutes, I actually thought it was a test. Like the kind of thing where he's gauging our reactions to a situation like that, like, 'What would Roman, Dean, 'n Seth do?'" 

Roman didn't seem nearly as interested in the recent backstab. His eyes were still on Dean, inclining a hand once more to recreate their earlier contact. "Calm down. It's okay. It's jus--"

Dean bolted away before the sentence could be completed. He loved Roman with his whole heart, but he needed to get to the source of that sound. The night could not continue until he found it.

It was like... that sad, elongated one he heard outside the Vulgar Crow the night before! Painfully louder, but the same. His ears guided him on this one, and before he knew it, Austin Co. was but a spec behind him. Carrying himself toward the long planter lining the lot, beyond which lay a street abuzz with nighttime traffic. Quieter rustles and whooshes joined the nonstop crooning, making his spine prickle.

He heard boots clacking on the pavement again, running at top speeds after him. He was no beginner to being chased, and this replenished feeling of physical prowess made him want to run for miles. The sounds only persisted--got even _louder_ \-- the harder he attacked the ground in his sprint. For some reason he hadn't yet investigated, that running-boot-racket only accompanied Seth and Roman's gaits. He, on the other hand, moved near _silently_ across the shadowy parking lot.

It wasn't long before he made his exit, tripping down an entrance ramp. They were calling out to him now. Everyone was.

The headlights of a car passed in front of him like two killer eyes. He stopped just before it. The huge, white vehicle roaring by an inch away from grazing his nose nearly took his damn head off, but he didn't stop to try and process that weighty info.

Greenery bordered the opposite side of the roadway. _Good_. He naturally gunned for it, hard and fast. It was hopelessly dark in there, but he didn't care. Unlike his usual reservations about going into any dark place without someone he knew good and well going in with him. His old reservations and preferences didn't seem to exist anymore.

As soon as his feet hit soil and he was hurriedly nosing through a vast sea of rustling plants, he could tell both of his teammates were hot on his trail. It was hard to be quiet in here. What truly daunted him was that he was so sure by the pace that he had been going that he lost them.

A hand struck him from behind. He yiped (What person _yipes_?), but breached through the last of the foliage to emerge on the other side with a twig lodged in his jaws. He fell flat on his face, but his legs still thought he was running and so responded accordingly, kicking out at the nothingness. He didn't get very far with that.

"Whoa," he heard Seth gasp.

"Connects up with Sapling. Should'a known." Roman lightly groaned after saying those words. Dean looked up at him, falling onto his side when his balance wavered, and saw that the older had three fingers pressed to his temple as though warding off pain with them, a tall, standing black silhouette against the only _slightly_ lighter backdrop that was the seldom shifting forest glen they just broke, unassuming, into.

It was like a painting they were having trouble viewing properly, due to the lack of sun. It ceased to move, but birds chirped at off key volumes at what was most definitely a strange hour in the night. And _boy_ was all of this ominous. Sapling Forest was never a land they had any reason to wander into. But _this_ was the place! Dean was so sure of it! The howly note carried nearer than it ever had, and he could reach out and lunge for it now.

"Ugh... We-- we gotta--" _Seth_ was groaning now. "We gotta get back to the apartment, man. What're we doing out here? Why are we following this dog again?"

_Dog?_

"It's Dean. Aren't we a little too invested in this ancient magic business to be surprised by something like this happening?" Roman plopped down in the dirt before Seth could grab him, sighing like all of his energy just got drained out of his body. "Maybe it was some... side effect of the old tome Helmsley used. Maybe Dean was flipping through it and got a paper cut. I don't know."

_Dog. I'm a dog now. That would explain a lot._

Seth weakly scoffed, his frustration evidently building... and his reserve wavering, whether he noticed it or not. "Whatever it is, _c'mon_ , I'm not gonna just sit aroun-- augh, no, _gAH_!" He crumpled to the ground much less gracefully than Roman. His hands jumped to his throat as though he were choking and all Dean could do was start pacing, anxieties rising.

Blood still rushed as loud as an oncoming train in his ears. He just wanted it to stop.

He was the only one of the three of them still standing, and, just as well, the only one who bore witness when that terrifying light engulfed his brothers' bodies, outlining them as if for later reference just before it began warping their shapes to its liking, hardly asking for permission.

Dean couldn't do anything about that, either.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this point, I'm not sure if art will be heading every chapter I write of this story. I just thought it'd be a cool thing to do every now and then. c: Who knows? Maybe I'll go back once the story is finished and fill in the spaces I leave empty. The NEXT chapter will have art-- I know that much.
> 
> Thank you so, _so_ much to everyone who has left kudos and bookmarked so far!


	7. Boy Lilikoi

__

 

* * *

 

The sounds of wildlife struck Seth as odd. He opened his eyes, slack-jawed, and noticed immediately that all vestiges of the soreness he had been experiencing over the last day or so had vanished. No heaviness, or ache in his muscles or bruises. He felt both physically and mentally... _repaired_ , if that made any sense at all. His mind felt clearer.

The black, starless sky was gone, and in its place a bright blue canvas with wispy white clouds. The sun gleamed on the shiny, faraway exterior of a plane flying high above the forest canopy, making a distant _rrrrring_ sound. The ground beneath him was soft, but grainy.

Swallowing warily at the surroundings he couldn't explain, he let his head fall back again. He could hear Dean and Roman talking nearby. Roman sounded puzzled by something, but nothing he said resonated enough with Seth for him to consider the specific words he spoke worth registering. He closed his eyes instead, and lied there for a while longer.

He must have dozed off again. When his eyelids flew open that second time, there was an annoying tickle in his ear. He scrambled upright, lying in some twisted, inhuman position to shake it clear. This sharp movement was accompanied by a strange flapping sound coming from his head. It made him stop, bewildered.

"Heyo, Seth." That sounded like Dean.

Seth turned a fraction of an inch, taking in the peaceful woodland splayed out before him. "Yeah?" he answered, not yet facing who he knew was behind him. A sneaking thought was coming back to him. Something he was only just now remembering his second try waking up...

Dean's droning voice interrupted all train of thought: "It's an awfully sparse shot in the dark, but did you by any chance dream about me last night?"

" _What_ , man? What kinda question's tha--" Seth broke off, the punctuation at the end of his question freezing painfully in his throat. He had shuffled around on the ground to raise an eyebrow at his teammate, but found that said teammate was nowhere in sight. What he did see, however, were **two dogs** sitting-- all the casual-- opposite him. One held an array of beige, rusty orange, and cream colors in its fur, while the other was all black, striking against its surroundings.

"Who... I mean, what...?" Seth rushed to stand and wound up falling down again. His body suddenly didn't want to cooperate. "Dean? Where are you? I-- I can't see--"

"Right here," answered Dean, calmly. And right back on the dogs was where Seth's eyes landed.

"No, that's-- _Dean._ Dean, I mean it, if this is some stupid joke--!"

"Oho, believe me, this ain't a joke. Do I look like I've been laughing?" A beat, and he continued, more serious than before, "Really. Truly. I can't lie right now. Shut up and take a look at yourself. I've had the whole night to work this through my head, but you're just startin' out. Roman isn't very happy either, if it makes you feel any better."

"What's goin' on?" Seth fell into the best sit he could manage, raising a hand to--

No. Scratch that; raising a _paw_.

He stared at it, eyes round. All orange fur and soft, dusty brown pads where his palm should have been. Four toes and a dew claw for a thumb. He lifted the other one to see if it was the same case and he nearly fell again, quickly bringing it back down to its place pressing into the forest soil. His heart missed a beat.

"I'm sitting like a damn dog. _Dean_ , why--"

"Yeah, dummy, that's 'cause we _are_ \--"

"Dogs! We're _dogs_. Why in the hell...?"

"Ya'know, Seth, I think it's downright hysterical how you're asking me like I know," Ambrose seethed, progressively losing his cool.

"I don't..." Rollins looked down, slowly, _shakily_ rising to stand. It felt more natural standing on all fours now than it ever did before. "I-I don't get it. I shouldn't get it, should I?"

"If you did, I'd be on my own over here," Roman spoke, for the first time since Seth surfaced. "'N'here's somethin' else I can't figure: we're not roadside anymore. We moved somehow-- deeper into Sapling than we were before."

"Oh... I was hoping you both moved me in my sleep..." The architect was at a complete loss. He turned in a full circle, getting a look at the long, shaggy black fur that hung off his flank, gleaming in the spotty sunlight. A bushy tail rose into view, and he nearly choked. It was obvious which of the two oddities that took place last night had him the most wound up _now_.

"I think we need a mirror," Dean said. For all this craziness that made no sense, he was awfully collected about it all. Irritatingly so.

"And-- and _you_ ," Seth exclaimed, jutting a paw out to point accusingly at his eccentric partner, "you did this-- whatever this is-- last night! I saw you! Helmsley was about to hit me, and you stopped him by... You turned into a friggin' dog _first_ , before either of us did! Explain that one to me!"

He took notice of Dean's face for the first time. His long snout, and the quirky characteristics. His brows were drawn in a look of innocent scrutiny. Battered with questions and in an entirely different body-- one he certainly wasn't used to in the least bit. Some low level guilt was building in Seth's chest, but it was a small enough emotion to ignore for now.

Before Dean could respond to the harsh inquiry, however, Roman butted back in, in what sounded the slightest bit defensive: "Pretty sure if he knew how, he would've told us by now, Seth." And, instead of actually _hearing_ him, Seth was only able to notice the way his eldest teammate's mouth ceased to open or move. A subtle shift in his expression, and a curt tip of his head, but other than that it was as though he was hearing Roman's thoughts.

Come to think, had _he_ felt his mouth move much at all during this conversation? He was talking, he knew. But he wasn't talking through his mouth, even if the words were coming out as clear as they would be if he were. It wasn't as if Roman or Dean were whispering, either.

_Dogs don't talk... as far as a human knows._

"Just our type of misrule, huh?" Seth asked, after a beat of silence. He was walking to them, head low and newfound fur standing on end.

Dean had pointy ears-- on contrary to Roman, whose ears were rather floppy and feathery. They rotated to stand erect on his head as he regarded his friend who drew ever closer. "'Fraid so. Isn't it the worst?"

"The worst thing to happen in the _history_ of ever?" Rollins questioned, idly feigning dramatics as he reached out. He touched Dean's shoulder-- delicately at first, like he was concerned he would break him.

"Yeah, that," Dean replied, his pale blue eyes flicking down to look. But before they could focus, Seth moved on to Roman.

"No. 'Cause, like, at least I can tell you two apart, right?"

Some kind of smirk was visible on Roman's face when Seth placed his paw on him next, exchanging a look with Dean that seemed to say, 'He's getting a grip. Everything's good.'

Seth withdrew, soured. " _Hey_ , I heard that."

Roman didn't blink, but the flicker of alarm in his eyes was evident. "What?"

"I heard you say 'he's getting a grip.' How blessedly _patient_ of you."

Roman faltered. This time, his mouth _did_ fall open. He looked again to Dean, who went just as rigid.

"You weren't supposed to hear that. You heard that?"

Seth sat down again, managing a roll of the eyes. "Well, yeah. You said it, loud and proud. And incidentally, you think _you_ have more insight as to what's goin' on than me? If you do, spill."

"I don't, I promise," the eldest assured him, failing to hide just how disturbed he was.

"But hey, look: as freaked as I still am, I second what Dean suggested. Let's go find a mirror." Seth jumped to stand and ambled around decisively. "Which way to the apartment? Where's the road?"

"That way," Dean answered with a motion of his head. A dense path, no different than any other direction he could have pointed in from where they stood. Thick with foliage and moss.

"You sure?" Seth wasn't certain of why he was asking. Something just didn't feel right. Other than the fact that he wasn't human anymore, of course.

The lunatic huffed, some surly cross between a grunt and a growl leaving his mouth as he pulled himself to his paws. "I need to get my ass outta the trees too. Would I lie to me?"

"Yes," and "Only on occasion," were the two simultaneous responses that Seth and Roman came back with. They looked at each other and laughed, while Dean shrunk away, his bear-like fur bristling on his neck.

"You keep making jokes," he mumbled, letting them lead the way out.

 

 

For a while, the rustling of leaves and the incessant chirping of birds was all they heard. How deep into the forest had they _gone_ exactly? Evidently much deeper than they first thought. But at about the same time they saw blinding light breaking out around the next group of tree trunks and the gleaming of cars as they drove past, the sounds, too, started to change. The chirping got drowned out-- or perhaps it just stopped altogether. A truck honked loud and noisy, startling Seth as it hurtled by. Much scarier than usual-- less like a vehicle and more like a legit monster.

"This isn't the road we entered from, Dean."

"So we lost Helmsley Mansion," Dean said, with a noncommittal shrug of his shoulders. "Big deal, right? It's not the worst place to get lost on the way to."

"It _is_ the worst thing to be lost right now," Roman snarked.

"We're not lost. We just went in the wrong direction."

Seth sighed. "That's called being lost." He craned his neck, expressing interest in the pebble he decided to kick across the dirt in front of him with an absent flick of his forepaw.

"Whatever, all right?" Dean started walking again, his footfalls heavy and not in the least bit calculated like they were before.

"We're not blaming you," Roman said, more gently. "We just need to head back. Start over again."

"How much time've we got for that crap? I say we try our luck hitchhiking."

"We can't," Seth argued, rushing up to walk beside him. "When's the last time you saw a dog hitchhike, huh?"

It came out sillier than first intended, but he really meant it. Dean turned on him, leveling him with the canine equivalent of the same bitchface that Seth knew for fact was twice as intimidating when he was human, if not for the blatant lack of razor teeth. "I can't tell whether you're trying to be funny or not."

Rrrrr... _RAWF!_

The shrubs shook and wet, labored panting filled the air. Seth froze in place.

"Was that you?" Dean asked. It was apparent from his tone he was trying in a last ditch effort for comedy. That was just before he backtracked, pressing in on Seth's shoulder with his own as a soundless gesture of camaraderie, snuffing out the notion that he was completely and utterly careless in that moment.

Roman joined on the other side, aiding Dean in the needless task of sandwiching their youngest brother in. His lips drew back and sharp, white canines appeared. Unconscious instinct or no, it was a threatening look.

Then, from a very _specific_ direction, a blur of light gray and sea foam darted out. A _huge_ wolf with yellow eyes and a spotless coat, if one paid enough attention for caring. It was snapping its teeth and raising its hackles. Looking right at them. Getting uncomfortably close.

Seth had to rub his eyes to make sure he was seeing right, but he only managed to irritate them with all the hair. And the wolf were still there. "Guys."

They weren't answering him, and it was becoming increasingly imperative that they did.

"Guys!"

"Right, right," Dean finally said, placid. "Run?"

"Run," Seth confirmed, getting low.

Roman was the first to move, throwing himself in the opposite direction and shooting off running. He was followed closely by Seth, whose tongue lolled out the one side of his mouth with the effort.

Blocked. The wolf threw out a paw to slash, open-mouthed _snarling_ now.

"Why would it be this close to the road?!" Seth yelled. He scrambled to turn and felt Roman's chin bump him on the base of his tail when he moved to do the same, hot on his heels. Enough of this jostling around and they would fall for real this time-- in a perfect heap for this evil creature to feast on. The brand new bodies weren't helping.

Jagged fangs nipped inches from their faces and shoulders and flanks. They were being driven like cattle. They weren't being allowed access back the way they came, but the much larger canine would get especially livid if they gunned for the road. It was a wonder they actually managed to get so close.

Another truck thundered by. Their harasser was steadfast, not even blinking at the sound. It lowered its head and _gently_ nudged Seth's elbow with a wet nose, making him jerk away and gasp. They were on a seemingly aimless path made up of sand and small rocks, behind an incomplete wire fence separating them from the vehicles breezing past.

He sped up into a trot down the roadside path, if only to get away. It was then that he noticed the heavy breathing no longer bearing down on him. Nervously shifting his weight, he chanced a glance backwards, gnawing on his dry tongue.

Dean trudged after him, followed more quickly by Roman who eventually passed him. The wolf stood behind the foreground of this, statue-still and staring solemnly, apparently having no more need to corral them anywhere.

Seth frowned and whipped his head back around to look straightforward once more, down the sandy path stretching as far as his eyes could see. One side was dominated by untouched tree and bush, while the other was dominated by rough asphalt and grating noise-- noise the trees did good on drowning out just about an hour before, as he recalled.

"Th-- this way, I guess," he mumbled, starting on a slow walk.

It felt risky treading this border. But just as Seth was about to voice his opinion on it, he noticed a curve. A _crucial_ curve. To the left, to be exact. Right back into the forest it led.

"He can't see us anymore," Dean pointed out. "Let's break it off."

"I'm starting to think we should... maybe stay on it," Seth answered. "It's the first path I've seen out here. And see, _look_ ," he indicated, kicking up some hot sand, "the sun gets to it. We're not in the dark anymore, and that's good, right?"

"But the route..."

"No, not-- not _that_ kind of path, Dean. You know what I mean, right, Roman?"

Roman's eyes returned to the path, flicking up briefly to stare Seth in the face. "I guess I don't like it as much as _you_ do."

"Aheh. Well, hey, who said I did? I didn't. I'm just saying what's in my gut, all preferences aside." He carried himself officially, picking his legs up higher than necessary in a purposeful march. To where, he hadn't a clue.

The road was far behind them in five minutes. The noise no longer invaded the peace of the bush-- nor the slobbery snapping of teeth. Seth led... even though he really didn't know why. It made just as much sense as either of his brothers leading, he supposed.

_Dogs. How even...?_

_Maybe Hunter would know wh-- Aww, auugh, nah, man, screw that crap. This is some stupid magic trick. We're goin' nowhere fast, and we're still clinging to our former boss' direction. We're so path-... Err.. Augh, nah._ I'm _pathetic._

His ears were folding in. Some reflex of his dejection. He could tell it was only natural, but that didn't keep him from feeling like an idiot.

He stepped into a patch of sun. That gleaming, black coat of his absorbed the heat like it was water. If he was being honest, it felt goddamn fantastic. Remnants stuck around on the skin beneath the fur when he was plodding through the shade once again, though that unexpected burst of heaven on the center of his spine when it occurred made him forget about his woes for a blissful few seconds. This was duly noted.

A new sound was reaching his ears now. Trickling water. Nearby stream, most like.

He took a sniff, eyes sharpening. His snout wrinkled with the effort. Then his legs took control, carrying him in a gradual turn that tramped him over greenery and off the path. Thorns pricked underfoot.

"Seth?" Dean's voice was much farther off than he'd been expecting. It wasn't long before he felt a warm presence flanking him on either side, closing in just before all three of them set eyes on the beauty ahead.

The sun sparkled on the rapidly shimmering surface of a long stream streaking through a green, mossy landscape. Trees served as a backdrop for a clearing that they were beginning to think they would never want to leave.

"C'mon." He felt a brisk prod to the shoulder. Dean was already racing to the lead and slowing only to a gamey trot when his feet hit the surface of the stream. The scrapper splashed through, maw parting in a stupid grin at the loud disturbance he was creating. Seth watched, admittedly a little dazed.

"The hell's he doin?'" he deadpanned, eliciting a chuckle from Roman.

"I'll take a wild guess: bet he's making the most of a situation he can't even _begin_ to understand. All heart, that boy." He sat back on his haunches, struggling to appear wry and calm in spite of the clumsy time he had doing so. "That, or he's just our resident crazy. You think that's it?"

Seth ducked his head, failing to suppress a snicker.

Roman nodded in affirmation, his whole body going lax. "Yeeah, that's it."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was widely inspired by the song the lyrics in the picture were from. ^^ I like to imagine it being the theme song to this story, when action sequences and fight scenes aren't going on. On the subject of those, however, there are still many more to come! This is still a WWE fic, after all.
> 
> In case it isn't clear to whoever may be reading, I friggin' _love_ the human-turned-animal trope. I've written about it more than I'd like to admit with various fandoms and characters long before I even conceived the idea for this story, but with THESE characters in THIS alternate universe, I'd say it makes a fair amount of sense. More sense than past ideas of mine have made, for certain. XD


	8. Unafraid

This instance would be the stuff of _nightmares_ for Dean... if he were alone. But there he saw Seth and Roman speaking quietly to each other up on a slope, having not yet descended on the water. He felt safe, and he felt... mostly sure. Really, there was a lot he didn't understand right now, but if he were meant to understand, someone would have explained already, right?

The confusion was the most frustrating part. Take that away, and Dean wasn't having the worst time. This didn't hurt, it wasn't mortifying... It felt fresh. Unused, and _right_ , like he'd never gotten into a single scrap in his life. This body donned no scars.

That being said, give Dean Ambrose a new body and watch just how irresponsible he can be.

_SPLASH!_

Those stupid, twiggy limbs crisscrossed on him. He couldn't stop himself; in seconds, his face was submerged in tepid, shockingly clear water, followed closely by the rest of him. Jarred, but his tall ears picked up on the sound of Seth openly mocking him.

It was one of those laughs when he found something genuinely funny. Not a sound he graced them with _lately_ , even in spite of how much he'd been trying to keep his brothers smiling and in good spirits. It hadn't been on the agenda prior to this forest visit, as what was to be expected.

"Shu--" _Blurb._ Dean lifted his chin and spat out what little got inside. He licked it off his lips anyway, getting in a taste. "Shut up, Seth. Hey, this--" He broke to take another lick. "Can water taste good? This water does. That crappy apartment lowered my standards."

"I'm not thirsty." Seth threw his guard back up just as fast, withdrawing a foot. He hunkered down, fluffy tail framing his left haunch. A pitiful sight. _Please, man, don't make a habit out of it._

Dean climbed back up to dry land and shook himself off. He was still flicking droplets from his paws as he walked, spitefully eyeing up Seth's posture all the while. It needed to change.

"No reflection. No mirror. Too many rocks in the way."

Seth wearily nodded and loosened himself up just enough to let his head fall to rest in the grass. "Good. I don't wanna look at myself, anyway."

 

 

_What? Yes you do!_

Roman spared glances over his shoulder. He ultimately opted instead for scooping water from the stream with his paw, tasting it as Dean suggested. Through the gleaming wet rocks, he could see glimpses of his own face constantly shifting-- constantly out of focus. He couldn't make out any details, but he could decipher one thing: he was like a shadow. Straight, solid black fur. No irregularities, as far as he could tell.

Hopefully he looked as striking like this as he knew he did on a regular basis. Could dogs be attractive? If he was one, the answer was probably yes.

"Omph! D-Dean, what're you--? Dude, get off!"

Roman turned with eyes half-lidded, wholly unsurprised with the prospect of Dean getting on their youngest's nerves. It really was a habit-- no preference.

"Fight me, you coward." Ambrose didn't have to raise his voice. He wasn't angry, after all. Just miffed. His forepaws pressed into the strategist's writhing shoulder blades, and his neck was craned with gaping jaws holding over Rollins' head like a silent warning. A warning he couldn't even see, but a warning nonetheless.

Seth quickly rolled to his side and Dean slipped off his back. He surged a foot up into his comrade's chest, creating some separation, but his look of triumph was sullied by disdain when the older shook some leftover water out of his ears right above him, more erratically than purposefully. Seth's whole head flinched back, having gotten nailed in the eye with most of it.

" _Auuggh_ , you're a jerk."

"Okay." Dean shrugged, taking it how he would. He had on that dopey canine grin as he went back in to nip at his teammate's ear. Roman arched a brow, his attention grabbed not by the interaction between the two, but rather by that furry extension on Dean's South end. It was held high and wagging, no doubt fanning some quality air to rival the warmth.

Was he doing that willfully? Roman pulled back on the spot, leaning on an angle now as though trying to see from another viewpoint.

This was strange. This was very, very strange. Would take some getting used to, for certain.

"Ha, whoa, what-- owning the role now, Dean?" Seth sat up, his head cocked to the side as his ear got tugged. His fight was now more halfhearted, uncovering the humor he lost sight of for a while there. The only answer he received was a mock growl. _That_ did it.

Dean's tail quickly flashed out of frame when Seth sharply lurched downward, no longer wagging excessively while he was concentrated. The younger's plight brought them both down into the grass, where they were locked in a tussle that was failing sorely to break the clench the older had on his ear. Seth was laughing again.

"I _just_ got these, Ambrose!" His own tail was thumping the ground, exhilaration building. It was seconds before he managed to wrap his paws around Dean's neck and forcibly pull his head along over his shoulder, successfully planting his face into the ground in a move a little too human for Roman's eyes.

Dean lied there for a moment before his shut eyes opened once again and he was giving his head a short rub. "Ugh.. Ears're tougher than they look, Hummin-- ugh!" He went dead weight, unamused when the younger climbed up onto his back and sat down on top of him like a couch.

"Good matchup, Dean-o. How 'bout we play a real game now?"

"Yeah, that's a great idea. Let's just... hang out here and play some crate hockey without the crates. Or sticks."

_Hmm..._

Seth chuckled and shrugged, his chin lifting off his chest from talking down to his stewing pal and peering across the damp patch of grass at the brother he wasn't paying nearly enough attention to. "That ain't the worst idea, eh, Roman?"

"Hold on." Roman acted fast, and was on his feet within milliseconds when inspiration sparked. He broke into a trot, quite abruptly stopping upon a tree, and placing his front paws up on the trunk, looking nowhere else but Heavenward.

_The canopy... hourglass..._

Seth scuffed a paw in the grass, lightly coughing. "Whatcha up to?"

"I've been here before. I know what we can use," Roman distractedly replied. He bowed his back, looking upside down across the clearing at the partly concealed land beyond. _Two steps to the right, a little East..._

Dean grunted when his younger partner leaped off him, running to go join. He clambered to stand and trudged over at an unhurried pace, his tail hanging low.

"Hey, here, I got it." Roman moved off the tree just as fast, cantering back the way Seth just came and breaking into a sprint upon clearing the stream in a single bound. He chased his way into the bushes on the other side and blindly sifted for a while. He was wandering in tight, thorny darkness for about a minute before he emerged on the other side.

The grass gave way to earthier terrain here, and there were more hills-- many of which trees stood on. Atop one sat a particularly thinner trunk in comparison to all the others, beside which rested some kind of gray rock with spots of brown...

Roman knew it wasn't a rock.

He hurried over and inclined his neck, breaching it with the sole purpose of touching his nose to the smooth exterior. Then he started nudging it along, delighting in how easy it was to be moved.

He went back the rest of the way like that, using his snout and forepaws to drive it into the plants. Instead of returning to the clearing like he thought he would, he... returned to an immediate closeup of Dean's face right outside the thicket, waiting on him with Seth lingering behind.

"What's this?" Dean nudged the round object, turning it experimentally under his paw pad.

"An egg," Roman answered. He sat in front of it, chuffing a bit. He chuffed again when Seth pushed in next to Dean to take a poke at it himself.

"An ostrich egg, Roman? Damn, it's huge!"

"I'm sure there're bigger ones out here somewhere. Sapling is weird." He sent it rolling through the grass. It went quite a ways before it stopped at a rock protruding up from the shoreline. "Okay, let's play."

"Play?" Seth blinked.

Roman gestured to Dean; "Crate hockey without the crates. Or sticks."

The architect huffed and turned his head around to watch the egg sitting stock still by the water, a ray of sun glinting off its strangely painted shell. "Or a tennis ball, apparently."

"You down for a game or not, Seth?"

"Aw, c'mon, we can't play with an egg! It'll break! That's what eggs are inevitably _for_!" He turned himself around. His tail swished and dislodged a cobweb as he padded over to the stream. "And, to be fair, crate hockey wasn't really like hockey. It was more like golf, but with goalies."

"All right. Let's play golf with goalies with an egg, then!" Dean gave Roman a boisterous rap to the shoulder, then took off prancing to the other side of the stream.

"This egg's not gonna break," Roman assured Seth, after a beat-- and the latter crumpled to the ground in a heap and groaned exasperatedly, realizing that they were actually going to go through with this.

 

 

It was a wild, wet _romp_ that was completely aimless in nature. It started with an objective, and no one was really sure about when that got dropped. They found wood to stack and built a structure to serve as a goal. Roman teamed with Seth and took it over, and Dean was left on his own. His goal was a wall of penetrable moss that, if even so much as _bumped_ , would earn the opposing side a point.

Not really fair, but complaining about anything at a time like this just felt... tasteless.

At this point, it was less like hockey and golf altogether. More like soccer now, if not for Dean already violating every rule in the book that would make it as such-- primarily picking the egg up in his teeth and running with it.

"That's not gonna count!" Seth yelled. He raced after the older, just barely managing to latch onto his flanks and throw on the brakes. Dean yiped in alarm. Seth fell over him, and they rolled a good few feet before finally stopping a hair's length from the wood goal.

Dean spat out the egg and batted it in before he could be intercepted. Seth loudly sighed and scrambled off of his teammate. Around them was a worn, damp world of grass and gentle evening colors. The ground and plants gleamed with all the water they sloshed around in their game. The sky above was pinkish-purple, arrayed with creamy clouds.

Their third approached them on an angle, not even trying to suppress his full-bodied laughter brought on by their antics.

"It counts," Roman said, his amusement doing anything but leaving. He elevated his paw and placed it on the younger's back, using it as a momentary rest. Playing around out here turned out to be a pretty good lesson and workout in paw-eye coordination.

"No way. You think you'd get away with that with any other group playing, huh?" There was no real spite to his voice. He shimmied out from under Roman's touch and sharply prodded Dean's side while he was still down. Dean flashed his teeth wolfishly and headbutted him as he rose.

"Nah, man, and I don't even wanna _know_ what would happen if I did _this_ ;" he flipped around and reared onto his hind legs, jabbing out at the goal and knocking two slabs of wood off.

Seth advanced on him before the fallen material had even hit the ground. "The moxie on you, Ambrose, I swear!" He lashed out at him. Dodged. Dean flounced around the structure and continued to disassemble the stack, sluing off pieces with those sharp teeth. Roman's sudden quiet (along with the rather loud rustling of bushes) thus far escaped Seth's notice.

Then Dean went suspiciously still. Seth couldn't say why, but the past few hours they spent fooling around here had immense influence on his inability to care. He threw himself at the fellow man-turned-canine, tackling him into the grass. He went down easier than he would have had he been paying attention, but his instantaneous laughter indicated that he was-- somewhat reluctantly-- letting Seth drag him back in again.

 

 

Roman had been initially planning on keeping a close eye on those two, but something was very effectively drawing him away. They were busy screwing around with each other; jeering and nipping and shoving with contented smiles on their faces, and didn't notice when he slipped away to go snoop around the perimeter. He was purposefully refraining from dragging his feet.

Now he crunched his way over fallen leaves and looked around with wary eyes as he went. He was no longer in their sights, and they were no longer in his. It should have made him feel unsettled, but all he could think with was the logic that he was better off being separated from and fighting for them than being with them and unknowing of the dangers ahead.

And the very thought of 'dangers ahead' set his fur to bristle. He was more or less grinding his teeth when he passed over something on the ground that reminded him vaguely of one of Bold's cable cords, but rougher. Scratchier.

Two groans behind the trunk of a tree; one more human in nature, while the other sounded far more mechanic. Then a huge, unrelenting force pushed up from underneath his weight, sending him shooting about five or six feet into the air. A wall of tough rope rose in front of his face before he could leap to escape it, and he was stuck, turning in panicky circles with his legs falling through the holes more often than not when his movements were less precise.

Precision wasn't exactly key right now.

"Got him, Mom," came an unfamiliar voice from behind the groaning tree. A young woman's voice with a disinterested tone, like what she just accomplished with the rope was a routine event for her.

There was no vocal response from this girl's apparent mother-- whoever or wherever she was. Roman tried to catch a glimpse of the speaker while he was biting down on the netting with his teeth.

No luck... in either venture.

 

 

"You're such an idiot." Dean reached up, twisting to lie on his back and bap the strategist in between the eyes. The distracting snap of a twig from nearby made him start, ears keening on his head as his attention once again moved off of Seth.

Seth failed to notice. "Aw-ha, yeah? Say it again, Ambrose, I dare ya!" He decided on a whim to test out those curious black nubs at the ends of his paws and dove in with a "vicious" growl. He was pushing his teammate down and digging into his exposed belly in haphazard fashion, hoping to incite even worse warfare with the action with all the persistency of a younger sibling trying to get their older sibling's attention.

Seth was, needless to say, rightfully confused when he was awarded no immediate laughter or playful squirming, and instead got an absent twitch and practically deadened, boring silence.

That _always_ got the desired reaction. Ten out of ten. But then, come to think of it, Dean wasn't the only silent being in the forest now. The birds weren't even chirping anymore. Everything was on mute.

He frowned in discontent. Just as fast, Dean shoved him off in a very no-nonsense sort of way and rose to his feet. He turned his head and his body with it in a very specific direction, muscles tense and hackles on his neck and elbows lifting. His lips started to ripple ferociously. Nervousness didn't hold out on Seth for long.

"What'sa matter?"

"Somethin''s not right." The older gave the air a sniff. The younger gravitated to flank him-- slightly behind, with his own limbs taut in a much flightier disposition. They were starting to hear what sounded like human footfalls hitting the nearby earth. What they couldn't yet tell was whether or not that was a relief.

Dean moved forward. He broke out into a full time sprint across the glen, and skidded where grass met patchy dirt. He snagged on an overhanging frond and disappeared into shadow, emitting a growl. Seth lagged behind; rushing in blind just didn't seem to be the brightest idea to him.

His pace picked up, however, when strange new noises invaded the breeze; noises derived from struggle, and heavy pawfalls that all but ensured somebody was running. He nosed his way over the bush previously trampled by his brother and was met with the sight and sound of bountiful, creaky ropes. Netting hung down from two of many trees, and inside the confines struggled his two partners writhing in separate snares. Awake, snarly, and unwilling. Dean was already clamping his teeth around his successful trap and trying to cut himself loose.

"I got ya, don't worry!" Seth rushed out in a single breath, already bounding to their aid.

"Seth, 's'not gonna work," Roman said, audibly at a loss.

He didn't heed the words. Only gave himself a running start and lunged for the net holding Dean. He latched on, narrowly grazing the older's hide through the rope and hanging limply by his tightly clenched canines, his much flimsier body swinging this way and that.

"Seth, watch--!" Dean couldn't get the final word out in time. Something sharp pierced Seth on the hip, and suddenly the sky wasn't up anymore. He released his hold and hit the terrain with a thud and a huff. He got a brief glimpse of the red dart sticking out of his pelt before he got distracted by white noise and sluggishness in his hind legs. His hind _everything_ , really.

The impact he made with the ground may have been harder than even he first thought. It took more out of him than it would have had he been in his 218 lb body to begin with.

And he knew this tranquilizer wouldn't have been working nearly as fast...

Roman yelled something to him. He didn't hear it, but thrumming on the dirt a few feet away made him forget about it in haste. Was a giant approaching?

Another voice joined the echoes. It was higher in octave than Roman's, like it belonged to that of a woman. And suddenly Seth started to think that that whole 'giant' theory wasn't so far off, because two legs approached and the toes of two boots were inches away from touching his shoulder blades, but he couldn't lift his head high enough to see past this person's knees.

The woman said something else. Seth heaved a final breath in his conscious state and then turned in, his eyelids falling shut.

He didn't know if he was dreaming when he felt human hands rifling through his fur. It was definitely the last thing he remembered.


	9. Lilac Sunset

When Seth awoke for a second time that day, the first conscious thought (or, rather, worry) he mustered up was a wonderance of whether or not he had gone blind. He was surrounded by blackness.

The space around him was warm. Wherever he was, he could feel motion. Was he in a vehicle? He didn't think he was blindfolded.

He was trembling when he craned his neck down in his splayed position. Unable to think of any alternative method to telling, he gathered spit in his mouth to regain a normal salivation and to make an attempt at getting rid of the nasty, dry taste, and then brought his tongue out to lick where he was pretty sure his arm was.

The bristled fur it rasped over confirmed that he was still a dog. He wasn't sure if that was a relief or not.

There was a wary, guttural growl to his right. He sharply turned his head, even though he knew it was useless.

"Seth?" Roman's voice instantly brought him comfort. He nodded fervently and ambled to his four feet; his hindquarters were still a little stiff. Despite the numbness, he realized he wasn't as confined as he first thought, as he didn't have to crouch. He could stand up straight and to his full height.

"What's happening?" Seth croaked out. His throat hurt. How long had he been out? It felt like he slept for a whole day, and a half of another.

"I... I dunno," his older brother wavered. There were absent thumps on what felt like a wood floor smothered by blankets when he moved. A second later, his head was buried in Seth's neck. His breathing buffeted the thick fur on his shoulder and Seth hummed at the unexpected gesture that smelled more of fear than affection.

And then something else hit him:

"Where's Dean?"

"He's here," Reigns answered, softly. "He's out; they nailed him with two darts. He wasn't... cooperative. Why would he be?"

Rollins brought himself down into a sit and lifted his nose to the space directly above his head. To his shock, he saw shadows. Silhouettes, outlines,  _light_... It was like a thin, noticeably lilac sheet had been thrown over the device containing them. Movable? He keened up a little higher and nudged it with his snout, and while it bowed to his touch, it was flanged down somehow.

"I tried," Roman informed him. Through the sheet, a particularly bright light shone in, and when Seth glanced his teammate's way, he could see the sleek, dark fur covering his face. Worry set his eyes aglow. For a split second, they could see each other clearly... and then the light vanished again and they were shrouded once more. "We're stuck, man."

Seth lowered his gaze to the floor he sat on. His downcast response to the comment was apparently evident with or without the light, because he felt that same silky warmth from before pressing closely against him. From his shoulder, along his flank, right down to his haunch.

He wasn't alone. He probably never would be for as long as he lived.

For a while, there was no noise apart from the distant hum of nature and the sound of boots scuffing the earth they were being carried over. When the crickets started chirping, so too did the voices outside the sheet pick up. Two women, talking in casual tones. One spoke like she was hesitant about something, and the other said a wry comment that ended whatever debate they were having. They spoke no more after that.

"Why're they taking us?" Things were too terrifying as it was  _not_  to say something. Anything to fill the void that entertained violent, grotesque possibilities when nothing was being uttered to serve as a distraction.

As far as these people knew (or as far as Seth knew they knew, honestly,) they were just dogs. Flimsy, yappy dogs. Animals. These two women tranquilized three dogs and stuffed them in a dark container and were taking them somewhere unannounced, and they did it unflinchingly. Without pause. Like it was friggin' normal, or even  _more_  unsettling: mandatory.

_Are we going to get eaten? Are we going to get tortured? Point blank killed? Why are we not being allowed to see where we're going?!_

"We can't know until we get there." It was an underwhelming answer, Roman probably figured. He was still trying to be rational. Collective. The shiver in his voice could still be heard very clearly, like he was cold. While  _his_ unease, of all peoples,' should have brought Seth panic, he had long since abandoned the idea that the older man was strong and resourceful only  _because_  he was older and infinitely more stoic; he was also human, and not always so opposed to masking fright.

All of a sudden, the device keeping them in the dark felt as though it was being tipped in the back. Old wood creaked underfoot. Seth's heart rate sped up all over again when he realized they were being taken up stairs.

There was a dead weight thud when Dean's body hit against the back of the enclosure, having slid down. He mumbled something in his unconscious state. His two brothers were meanwhile desperately fighting for proper footing, but the whole process was difficult. Definitely having none of the same capabilities on hand that were so very accessible when they were on two legs-- most of which Seth realized he'd been taking for granted all these years.

After what seemed like a few good minutes of stair-climbing, the containment leveled out again. They weren't on the stairs anymore, but they weren't on soil or grass, either. The path wasn't bumpy or soft; it was hard and solid and  _cut_. Buffed, maybe even. It was like they were on their way inside a... building.

Rollins swallowed a mass lump (or, at least, he would have if his mouth hadn't been so dry) and steeled himself immensely, then returned his eyes to the roof cover. All he saw was dark, but it wasn't a no-more-sun-dark. Something was obstructing the sky and trees.

They passed under a definite threshold.  _That_  was when the light came back, albeit not from the sun.

"Take it off now," one of the women said. The unit was placed on the floor. Shadows of figures passed in front of the ceiling light.

There was a tense minute of silence and fumbling. When the sheet was finally ripped off, it was terrified instinct that told Seth to get down as low as misshapement allowed him and hide his face in his paws. He closed his eyes and pretended the light  _wasn't_ , in fact, glaring down on him.

"I don't know your names, but I can tell you ours," the same woman stated immediately. Her voice quaked with age, but there was a certain authoritative air about it. The oddity was almost enough to pique Seth's interest and make him look up, but he was still adamant.

That was, until he realized... she was  _talking_  to them.

"Oh yeah?" Roman piped up, bravely. "Spill."

Seth got a brief assessment of his now-alit surroundings in. They were in a large, nest-shaped basket. Dean was still down for the count behind them, lying in an awkward position with his upper lip pressed raised to expose teeth against the weaved wall.

Roman was balancing on his hind legs with his forepaws secured on the rim of the nest, sneering up at the old lady in the black cargo shorts and white sneakers staring coldly at them. She wore an olive green shirt under a pink button-up shirt that wasn't buttoned.

Her hair was a natural red-orange hue faded from time, with thin streaks of gray. A stark contrast to her younger, more tanned, more  _lithe_  companion: a gorgeous, defined woman with perfectly long, shiny, wavy copper-red locks that tumbled over her chest and down her back. She was clad fully in black. Her muscle tee put on display the intricate designs tattooed on both of her sturdy arms, and was currently rolled up just enough to let the ring tattoo encircling her belly button be seen. Over it she wore a shredded mesh, and on her legs she had on tight, dark leggings. Tough, worn boots were laced up past her ankles.

"I'm Maya," the older woman introduced herself, then motioned lazily to the ridiculously attractive chick, "and this is Sheldi, my daughter." Seth's breathing sped up, consequential questions fizzing to the surface. Maya held her hand out, the sternness on her face not leaving when she interrupted his panic with, "We can't understand you. Don't make a fuss."

"Not while you're like that, anyway," Sheldi added. She smiled more than her mother did. She looked sympathetic, albeit... chipper? Possibly even excited. Seth couldn't imagine about what.

Maya stepped closer across the floor of the quaint, artificially lit hut, playing absently with her hair in spite of her wholly focused expression. It made the floorboards groan, but it wasn't the only sound this rickety home made. A gentle breeze wafted in from the squared-off window beside the wide door. The tiny flame licking away at a small candle wick on the sill danced against the listless darkness of the woodland outside.

"Like you can't understand animals of any other species besides your own when you're human, we can't understand you. Our goal is to return you to your human forms so we can answer any questions you might have."

She knelt with fair struggle and a taxed grunt, and even though the defensive growl that rolled threateningly out of Roman was almost directly in her ear, she still reached out to Seth and placed her hand, slow and tenderly, atop his head. "I reckon questions are  _all_  you have."

 

 

She certainly wasn't wrong on that account.

Still, the struggle lied in not being sure whether these two could be trusted. Roman didn't care if they had already proved to be knowledgeable about the whole 'dog predicament' going on here. He wasn't that desperate to change back right now, anyway.

Two wild ladies living alone in a hut in Sapling Forest. It was a good thing kidnapping was their way of saying hello, because Roman couldn't picture himself going willfully at first glance had they approached him and his brothers outright.

That being said, it was actually kind of a nice place. The main room was a cross between a living room, a kitchen, and a library. It was rounded off. To the side there was a small archway that led through to some narrow stairs going up to a second story. Maybe that was where they slept.

It looked like a place that expected visitors. The jagged-toothed mammal skull hanging down from the rafters by a string was a little unsettling, and nearer to the stairs was a stone altar the perfect length for a human body that was entirely carved up on the base and sides with ancient writings and symbols. But... yeah, those things were totally passable.

Up on the wall, there was a small picture strung up only by tape. Black-and-white patterns swirled the tiny expanse of it. It was so hard to tell what it was supposed to be, Roman couldn't figure out if it was a picture actually taken by camera or a painting

A quick glance in Seth's direction-- roughly around the time Dean uttered a groggy, "Wh'r'we?" and Maya was instructing them to get out of the basket-- and he could clearly see that the architect was infatuated with the idea of getting answers.

They weren't going anywhere.

"I saw one of you was already changed when you entered Sapling last night," the old woman commented, holding tight to Seth as he leapt out over the rim of the basket and landed on the humid, grippy floor with two distinct clicks when all sets of claws touched down. "We doused the entrance off the route in Tranquilante; it is a powerful substance we also lace our darts with."

"You wanna break it to them any faster?" Sheldi muttered. It garnered a tight glare from Maya.

"Lacing the darts-- it's a slow, tedious process, because it takes a careful hand. Tranquilante causes pain-- in the throat, mostly, although I haven't looked into why yet...

But it's harmless, and ultimately knocks you out, even if your encounter with it wasn't excessive. Sheldi spaces out during her work and winds up taking a four-hour nap, but she's up in time for dinner."

" _Mom_ ," she all but groaned, covering her face with her hand.

Roman stopped listening. He didn't need to hear any of this crap. He hunkered down by Dean and occupied his time nosing at his bony elbow instead, helping along the rousing process.

"The means we used to drive you around today, to make sure it brought you  _here_  to our door--"

" _We're sorry for it_ ," Sheldi interjected, in a voice that didn't particularly  _sound_  sorry. She sounded more miffed, as if she knew her mother wasn't exactly working up to an apology.

Maya stiffened and then schooled her features. Her eyes were cold in spite of the way her hands glided over the black-and-orange coat swaddling Seth's neck, almost entirely disappearing inside the fur. The brush-over stopped by his shoulders where it thinned out somewhat, and Roman could see his little brother suppress a strange shudder.

"--it was all in your best interests, I assure you," she completed her sentence, calmer now. "Nothing and no place is safe now that the effects of the condition aren't dormant anymore. I need to explain what it is and how to deal with it. There'll be hell to pay if I don't."

_The what now?_

"Wha's'this witch harpin' about?" Dean growled, in a voice more guttural than normal. Roman sighed.


	10. The Holtons

 

* * *

 

This Maya woman had a hand in the way they were kept restricted to the forest path today? With the moving of their bodies while they were sleeping, and the wolf?

_How in the hell did she manage the wolf?_

So far, little made sense to Roman. They were physically turned into dogs, with  _tails_  and everything, and suddenly it was a 'condition?'  _On_ our  _end? I don't think so!_

If they had a condition, they would have known about it, because Helmsley would have known about it; he knew about every last weakness they had, and had, in the early days knowing them, displayed a certain knack for being aware of what he considered a weakness even before they were aware they had one.

But then, how could Maya know about any of this? Sheldi evidently knew stuff, too, but her mother was obviously the ringleader. Where did these two come off setting traps in the woods and transfusing darts and... knowing a scary-lot about the current situation he, Dean, and Seth found themselves in?

_Fine, I'll listen. I'll just try to push the last twenty-four plus hours of being treated like cattle to the back of my mind._

 

 

"I get it was showy-- kidnapping you instead of just coming up to talk. I wouldn't condone any runners," Maya explained in a gravelly voice. She beckoned Seth over across the room to stand in front of her, but she didn't crouch to his level this time.

He looked up at her, doe-eyed and unsure of what to do. The one relief he found in this body was that he wasn't the one relied on to talk so much, because how much talking did he really want to partake in with this stranger?

There would  _be_  no talking between them; just questions.

Then again, just how many humans would he be interacting with while like this? If he could have a repeat of the day he just had frolicking through the forest with his brothers, it would have surely been all he needed.

"It's a healthy combination of mental and physical force of will," the elder quietly said to him. Far behind, Seth could hear his two partners communicating through whispers. "You need to think about why you want to be back, as hard and as loud as you can in your head. Close your eyes and don't let anything distract you. It comes natural-- or so I've been told."

He didn't bother with trying to wonder what that meant. He did close his eyes, and tipped his head down as he pondered more than he strived for anything. Maybe this body was a place he wanted to escape from, because Maya called it a condition earlier and that couldn't have meant anything good, but... what sort of condition feels so natural?

_One you've had all your life, probably._

If being  _this_  felt so terrifyingly natural, and being his familiar ol' crooked human self felt natural as well for obvious reasons, what would sifting between the two feel like? Akin to what Maya just informed him she had been told?

_Hands. Having hands again would be nice._

It was funny he thought it, because just as soon he felt a warm hand press his head. From the bridge of his nose to midway between his ears, reminding him of the blood and nerve components contained beneath the flesh. The sheer flexibility the small fissures provided, and the tough keratin on the end of each finger. Not black nubs, but rather translucent plates. Nothing sharp.

Like blunt teeth. Grinders, and not tearers. He was  _never_  put at a disadvantage with those for chewing food with. All at once, it made the tongue in his mouth feel strange, too, because tongues weren't supposed to be so wafer-thin, were they?

The hand moved. It left his head to go seek purchase someplace else, and jerked Seth out of his self-induced stupor for half a second. It was all that was needed, as he went to follow the floating appendage that was more or less teasing his scalp while his eyes were closed and felt both front paws leave the floor.

It felt like the beginning of a jump, but he suddenly got the odd impression that he wouldn't be coming back down from it. Hazy light danced before his eyes, numb pressure pushed down on his back, squeezing his ribcage down from the back as to the point where he started to have trouble breathing.

A tear pushed its way out from his right eye. He gasped and flew his arms in. He found his hands; they slammed down on Maya's shoulders with some serious weight behind them, shocking even her.

"Whoa, easy!" Sheldi quickly made her presence felt, coiling her fingers around his forearm with one hand and lifting the mesh cloaking her upper half to finger the dagger sheathed on her thigh with the other. He snapped his head around to gawk at her, effectively making her flinch. His erratic lunge up towards her mother probably brushed her wrong.

He couldn't feel the threat she posed if he tried, though. His legs were like jelly, and yet they were the strongest they had ever been. Flighty. He felt game to run and run forever, shift direction on a whim, just  _move_. Somewhere--  _anywhere_!

"I-I'm- I'm back? I'm good?" He wasn't so sure about that last bit, but Sheldi nodded fervently. What grounded him was taking in the meager inch or two he had on her. She was smiling at him. He forgot how smiling worked, so all he could do was grit his teeth and hope it looked friendly.

The tear wetting his cheek slid down into his beard. He relinquished his death grip on Maya and reached for his face to rub it away. The feeling was returning and the adrenaline spiking in his calves was slowly ebbing. Everything  _was_  good.

"It's a muscle you need to exercise, just like any other. We call it 'shifting,'" Maya said to him, as he patted his torso down in growing wonder. His stomach was growling and the salt in the tear he wiped dry irritated the cut he forgot he had. That felt like a lifetime ago, incidentally. But all of these things were nitpicks, because he felt fantastic.

Next thing he knew, Sheldi was linking her arm with his and giving his bicep a hearty pat. He wasn't sure if he liked it or not. "What's your name?" she inquired, in a tone that was soft but also important.

"'M'Seth." He decided in the end that he did like it. She smelled good.

 

 

Dean had no friggin' idea what was going on. Waking up where he did, with Roman there to nudge him to his feet, was merely a pro of many cons. He didn't like not being in control, but now especially more than ever, because it brought protecting his own into the mix.

Or... at least, he was pretty sure.

If his human body was a fighting machine, then this body was a mean, relentless killing machine. He could feel it in his gut, and in all the sharp points. He had too many means of skewering at his disposal to not demand from their captors that all shots from here on out be  _his_  for the calling. They were his now. He owned them.

He supposed that was just the way things worked;  _I have a very leader-esque stance on things, because I should. My judgment is very circumspect._

They could probably  _feel_  the alpha male vibes radiating off of him, which was why they were refraining from touching him. He was quite the force to be reckoned with, and if he needed to demonstrate, he most certainly would.

That tingliness in his left ear was a little distracting, though. The triangular fold wouldn't stop flapping, and it made all the fur on that respective side of his face bristle up. It made him grumble and shake his head to get rid of it, and for the record, it worked. Probably because of the movement he caught sight of, sashaying in front of the door in that same direction and making it impossible for him not to turn his head and investigate.

And  _boy_ , was the view nice.

He gaped at her. Long and hard. He was tracing the line of her jaw with his eyes, framed by her copper-red hair, when he received a brisk prod to the shoulder and a low, "Hey," from Roman that snapped him out of his reverie. Almost.

"Hey yourself. Who's she?" he asked, motioning with his nose. His older brother followed the line of sight to where he was referring, and dully groaned.

"Sheldi, I think. She's...  _that one's_  daughter," he explained, and gestured to Maya, who was currently coaching Seth on what to do.

Dean generally wouldn't have given such a crap about who the girl's parents were, but if this wasn't an all hands on deck situation, he didn't know what was. He was just happy this 'Sheldi' was on the deck with him.

Suddenly, he heard that weird sound again. The one he heard before he changed bodies last night, like creaky leather or a rope right before it snapped. He sat up and faced the commotion head-on, and it was just in time to see the light show that went down seconds before his younger brother reemerged from it on two--  _wobbly_ \-- legs.

"Whoa, easy!"

"I-I'm- I'm back? I'm good?"

Sheldi teetered in place. The move she made to grab her dagger was put on pause when she took into account just how disoriented Seth was. Her smile lit up her whole face, and there wasn't even anything particularly intense about it.

"It's a muscle you need to exercise, just like any other. We call it 'shifting.'"

 _Shifting, huh?_ Ambrose's roguish smirk pushed the limits of just how  _human_  he could quirk his face to look. That, or it was even more doggish than before.

 

 

Now that Seth was walking around with regained bearings, the ice in the room had been scored the slightest bit. But with him relearning how to wiggle his fingers and stand without falling over, and Dean ogling Sheldi in his own little world, Roman felt like the only one who didn't have a place right now.

He hopped out onto the floor and glanced around with discerning eyes and keening ears. Maya turned to look at him next. Her expression hadn't changed.

"You," she said. The firm, one-syllable word caught her daughter's attention. The young woman smiled and took her watchful eyes off of Seth for a moment to focus instead on the new exchange going on. Roman looked anywhere but up, but he was moving forward. It was probably why he so easily stumbled into the legs of his reformed teammate, who was just as equally unsuspecting.

"Oop, hey," Seth mumbled, and without thinking dropped into a crouch. He secured one of his hands on the withers located behind Roman's neck, partly for balance and partly because he wanted to provide skewed comfort; he wasn't all too stable himself. "It works. I dunno how, but it works."

Roman felt very small now. His little brother had to crouch down to his level to speak to him!

"But how does she know what she knows?" he wondered aloud, with much more desperation in his voice than what he would have cared to admit. Seth never answered, leading the older to think that that human barrier blocking a person from understanding was contagious. He smiled at Roman and picked up from the floor, but his hand was still lingering on his back. Maya cleared her throat, and suddenly it was gone.

He swallowed and proceeded on. He stopped before the old woman, who reached down to get a good grip on his face and massage the bases of his ears with her thumbs.

"The only reason you were given these abilities was for the sole purpose of fluctuating. If it didn't come like instinct to you, I don't know what would." She stopped her petting. It was seamless-- her ceasing to touch him. Roman closed his eyes without being prompted first; everything told him to, even if no one did.

Always important to make sure that human body was in working order (and he spent most of yesterday thinking it was the only body he had, so, wow, bite down on that), and, at the current moment he stood there with all eyes in the room on him, Roman could tell something was wrong.

Cowardice complex was trying to set in and scare him off with all the responsibilities he was being ensured. The road ahead was long, and a small part of him didn't even want to see where it led. Not even a tiny glimpse.

He was undoubtedly needed, though. Nobody else could offer his services but him...

He needed to. Needed to, needed to,  _needed to_. What was he doing being anyplace that wasn't back there, where he, too, had thumbs? And fists.

The following few seconds were not pleasant ones. He  _may_  have cried out, because there was a chance his bones  _may_  have been getting violently contorted pretzel-style. He was worried about stretching up so high that he snapped, with the probable outcome of ricocheting off the ceiling and splatting somewhere.

Would he need to be scraped up off all the immediate surfaces? Which way would his heart go?

It was like starting from an almost-asleep state. It was awful, but rousing. Getting splashed with icy water was still preferable, though.

He crumbled to the floor first thing, clutching blindly at himself, and then Seth's fingers were grabbing at his shirt again. Dean bounded in, bleakly whining in tones Roman could no longer understand, to clamber over his lap and nudge a wet nose under his chin. He was being swarmed by concern at all angles as he sat there, spent. Daunted.

"You're all right," Seth assured him, brushing some hair away from his eyes.

About five minutes later, with the younger man still on him like glue, Roman was pacing. Sheldi asked him what his name was, and Maya made a low comment that sounded an awful lot like, "They just keep getting bigger," as she watched him move.

He didn't know who 'they' included, but when the elder stopped him by way of seizing him by the forearm, it certainly merited making a hunch; she rucked the sleeve of his shirt up higher than where it was already folded around the crease of his elbow to crudely stare at the gallant, shiny muscles bulging out underneath. The ones that usually emanated confidence.

"Mom," Sheldi chided the brassiness her mother displayed in a tired voice. She motioned without looking at Dean, whose ears perked in conscious, pleased attentiveness at the gesture aimed his way. "One more, okay? We can worry about looks whe--" She broke off. Fell silent. The white-toed paw landing in the smooth, inclined palm of her hand evidently surprised her, because she turned around with a quirked brow to take in Dean's pointy face smiling back at her.

Her own smile came out, but in a vastly different nature than before. There was something decidedly wicked--  _daring_ \-- about it. "And who're you?"

Dean's expression didn't change. Not even when he was quite literally melding back up; getting taller and less furry, and the paw in Sheldi's hand became a fellow hand. Roman wasn't envious until he comprehended that he could have very well blinked and missed it. The 'shift' that happened so spontaneously that there ought to have been something seriously wrong.

Sheldi's eyes widened, but that was all she gave away in terms of her shock. Her left hand was still commandeered by his right. Her free one pressed flush against his firm chest. It was sort of like a strong, breathing wall had just risen up directly in front of her. She stared at the space between the two pectorals before remembering to look up and connect them to a face.

Roman knew Dean was a self-proclaimed ladies' man, but this was just ridiculous.

It affected the way he changed back?  _How_?

Their oh-so-charming middle brother locked an arm behind his back in formal fashion and grinned stupidly at her. "I'm Dean."


	11. The Particulars

 

* * *

 

Dean was pleased to see Sheldi's blue-green stare turn sultry. He had to admit: he wasn't excessively equipped to have a surefire hope of wooing women today, because less than twenty-four hours ago, he'd been chewing up a twig that probably had bear piss on it to safely remove it from his mouth.

Additionally, he wasn't wearing his best suit. His best suit being his only suit. He actually wasn't wearing his best anything; he was wearing a turtleneck shirt that smelled like gunpowder, and pants and boots stained with engine oil. He was scruffy and his hair was going everywhere except where he wanted it.

But did Sheldi care? So far, it didn't seem so.

Maya did, though.

"I think that's enough." Her tone was grave. If Dean didn't know any better (which, he didn't), he probably would have guessed Sheldi feared her mother-- or at the very least feared her wrath. She pulled her hand out of his grasp and gave him a secret, incredibly  _hopeful_  smirk, then obediently turned her back on him and rejoined the circle in the center.

Seth's mocking chuckle still grated Dean's ear, though. He gave the younger man a gentle nudge with his elbow.

It was like the exchange broke the regular flow of talking in the room. Sans that noisy owl outside, and the relentless crickets, and the occasional soft wind gust that seemed to rock the entire structure, there was definitely no racket. And that wasn't saying much. Maybe there was no  _shortage_  of racket.

Roman came around back to grab them by the napes of their necks, very much announced. The gentle wringing he administered shook the last of their reservations out. They were each in relatively good health, they were mostly happy... They were good.

"Now, if we're settled..." The weariness in Maya's voice didn't go unnoticed.

"Ooh, might wanna listen up," Sheldi chirped. She bounced over to the writing desk by the candled window and plopped down in its chair. Her motion to the two couches didn't make her guests any more eager to move from where they were standing. "Sit down, if you'd like. I mean, you might need to."

 

 

Seth wasn't sure he liked the sound of that. He placed his hands on his hips instead, opting to stand. Bracing came more naturally stood up.

"When I was... a much younger woman," Maya began, unceremoniously, "I met three people the same age as me-- three friends-- who were out of tune with the world and-- and  _strange_  people, but inseparable. They jumped at the slightest sounds or touches, there was hardly any meat on them because they were just so thin. I thought, at the least, they were poor. Maybe they had a history of being treated bad, and it was because of their social class; they certainly didn't have any money.

They always expected the worst out of people. They were surprised when I gave them my food one day, like it was something no one had ever done for them before. And after that, every encounter was relaxed; I spoke to them more, they were nice to me... That statement about 'the less fortunate being the most charitable' is sometimes true, but these three didn't exactly fit that picture.

One night, they told me very adamantly to leave. That was off-putting. I even asked them why, but I never got an answer; just more ushering. And when I left the building and looked back from a distance they couldn't see me from, young men were not what came out after me, but  _dogs_. Three dogs, who, I  _swear_ , were not in the building with us. They ran across the street in a tight pack. I watched them until I couldn't see them anymore, and that was that."

Sometime before Maya began with the story, Dean popped some gum he forgot he had with him. He was scarcely chewing it now, and was staring straight ahead at her with furrowed brows. It didn't rival the intent grimace Roman had on. His hands slid down from the backs of his brothers' necks to hold tight to their shoulders instead.

"O-okay, but, uh..." Seth scratched idly at an itch nagging his wrist. "Did you ever... find out why?"

Her head shake almost looked regrettable. "No, I didn't."

Apparently, leaving such a weighty pause was completely just and fair. She ignored the way they stiffened up and continued on levelly, "My ties with them were not broken, so I saw them many times after that. They never answered any of my questions, though. Not exactly. I'm still not sure if it was intentional or not."

"What'd they have? No one ever dug into that?" Roman sounded incredulous. Maya looked sharply to him, and only him.

"There's no name for it. There never has been. And this leads into my point: when Sheldi was little, I met-- and started working with-- three  _more_  people. Two men, and a woman. Same situation."

"' _We_ started working with,' I think you mean?" Sheldi scoffed, in a tone suggesting she was feigning-- or maybe not feigning-- hurt.

"The three of you are the third group I've ever met with this 'shifting' ability-- second for Sheldi. You can change to and from the body of a domestic dog. A completely undercover human being, in an animal's body. Over the years, I figured finding these people and helping them cope was what I was good for. I know patterns, I know how ordinary people perceive you. The personal cases vary; every group I've met has been different, with different quirks on their bodies or in their minds. But some things stay constants in that, like always surfacing in threes."

 _That_  was a little weird. To Seth, at least. "I- I promise you, we were teamed together in this... stupid, piece of crap street gang that chased idiotic prophecies and fought like animals. We were lead enforcers, we guarded stuff... This never came up. Nobody ever told us that we were going to be..."

"And why would they?" Maya inquired, before he could go on. "You didn't  _need_  to be told, evidently. The one who teamed you together-- they knew what you were and partnered you accordingly, from what I'm gathering. They must have known."

"Nah, no... no. We just...  _wound up_  together, trust me. Nothing pushed about it." The look she gave him suggested she highly doubted it, but she let him go on this time: "Helmsley tried us with everyone, and it just never felt right, and then..." He paused. "Well, fast-forward three years to last night... I guess he really  _didn't_  know crap, 'cause..."

Roman butted Dean in the side with his elbow, making him twitch and curl his lip. "Dean changed first, from... anger, or something. Our boss was gonna injure Seth bad if we didn't tell him something he _thought_ we knew. It's confusing; I'm getting tired just thinking about it."

Maya studied them thoroughly for a few seconds. Scrutinizing, stern. She started over to the altar-like platform, where she leaned over its wide surface area to reach behind for something. She pulled out a long, white roll and tore off a quality length to lay out overtop it, like a tablecloth, or a sheet on an examination table. "Sheldi, we don't need the light anymore."

"All right." While Sheldi got up to go switch off the beaming light on the ceiling, her mother was going around lighting every candle that was out. Seth watched them move around with a tilt gradually turning his head to the side.

Once the glaring one was off, the ambiance outside was especially soothing with nothing but flickering, orange orbs aiding their sight. An unsettling scritching sound on the roof of the quaint hut made everyone look up. Sheldi sighed exasperatedly; "I gotta go up there with the broom again. Ol' Hooter doesn't know when to give up."

"He's on a soft spot; he'll make a hole and fall right through it." With the small lighter she pulled from her pocket, Maya lit the last wick on the altar and then snapped around to approach her guests. Seth tensed up before he even knew why.

 

 

"Now, those domestic dogs you turn into... They're you, but they're not you, if that makes sense."

A  _lot_  of interesting stuff they learned regarding Maya and her daughter over the past hour. While the conversation seemed to be permanently locked on him and his brothers, Roman noticed they never turned down any queries. A foolproof strategy toward getting somebody to trust you: having no secrets.

Their surname was Holton, Sheldi was twenty-five, and Maya wasn't so eager to reveal her age. Sheldi also idly mentioned that this was where she grew up; in the forest, in this nifty two-story hut, isolated from other people. She knew how to survive in the wilderness, predictably enough.

"I don't think that does... make sense," he hesitantly said, glancing up over his shoulder. He sat on a lounge couch, striving dutifully to face away from them. Dean was walking around picking up picture frames and knickknacks and never putting them back quite the way he found them, but neither host seemed to care about his rudeness.

"Your human mind's still intact, but your mannerisms can still be sorta... off." Sheldi Holton motioned with her hands while she explained. She was very animated once she got deep into a talk. "You might get urges to do things you wouldn't normally find so appealing, or fun. Just as well, it affects your human half a bit, too. Physically and psychologically." She stopped, taking a moment to think the next thing she said through. "In a way, I guess you're a dog, regardless of which half you're inhabiting in that moment."

Seth ran the tips of his fingers over the spines of all the shelved books against the back wall. He flinched at the words and looked back at her, mumbling fretfully, "Um, like what? ...Urges?"

"Sorry, not just urges. It comes down to the very way you carry yourself, and your daily mood. Like... energy. You might feel like you have more than you actually do." She propped her knee up on the armrest beside Roman to momentarily lean and looked around like she was about to take a group poll. "Any of you ever feel intensely playful? That's the kind'a thing I mean."

 _Playful?_ Oh, yeah, that word _was_ a thing, wasn't it? For a little while, Roman thought it was just a term he dreamed about once.

"Like, getting super fidgety. Needing fun, and not just after a considerable amount of work but much more frequently. Maybe you've even turned work itself into a game when it gets really bad."

"'Cept we're not little three-year-olds," Dean stated, as he returned another frame to its rightful place "We're full grown men, son. Hell, I don't even remember being three."

"Me neither," Seth conceded. He never turned or looked around to talk. He didn't sound nearly as sure as Dean did; his partner _did_ kinda just drag that analogy out of nowhere.

Sheldi shrugged her shoulders. None of them appreciated the tiny smile on her face, followed up by a dissatisfying  _nothing_. Her mother jumped back on things before they could hope to corner her about it:

"Another trait to mention is categorized under... I suppose you could say _obedience_. In or out of your Canid body, there's this innate need to please-- to do whatever your superior tells you, and to do it well. More than well."

"No." Maya obviously knew her stuff, and Seth didn't want to come across as disrespectful toward her-- admittedly  _offbeat_ \-- wisdom... but he couldn't keep the word out of his mouth.

He could feel everybody's eyes on him as he fumbled and scratched the back of his neck. "F-first, an innate need to play, but... secondly, an innate need to  _please_?"

"I heard you mention a... Helmsley? Did you follow his orders without question?"

"Of course."

Sheldi chuckled nervously. Maya seemed miffed again, so it had to have been why she figured stepping in so soon was a good idea. "I'll bet it's... dazing, finding all of this out at once. The last three we met who were like you guys-- we couldn't tell them everything we're now telling you because they were... teaching _us_ , in a way. Symptoms vary, too, y'know? You may not exhibit all of the ones we know, but we're only asking so we know how to help."

"I'd appreciate questions that weren't so prying," Seth bit out.

To his visible surprise, Sheldi didn't mirror his irritation. She looked so confident at first glance, but she was really... servile. At his grumbling, she flinched and backpedaled a little, passing a frantic stare to her mom that screamed 'help me.' And, gee, Seth had had bigger outbursts before. Over  _smaller things_!

"Those aren't the only effects worth looking out for." Maya was really good for distracting from a subject by starting a new one. She hoisted herself up atop the platform backing her and sat down, placing her hands in her lap. "There's restlessness; the inability to stay still does a real number on you."

"We already covered that. But don't forget the tongue thing," Sheldi said. Some of her wry humor was returning to her. Whatever the 'tongue thing' meant, it pulled the corner of her mouth up into a smile.

 

 

Were they supposed to be logging this away? It wasn't that it was a lot to remember, but it was certainly a lot to take in in one sitting. And Seth wasn't even sitting.

The young woman padded up to her mother pretty darn quietly in spite of the boots and patted the spot beside where she was seated on the altar. "It's good stuff to know about before you live it-- and you  _will_  live it," she said, gravely. "And if it wouldn't be too much trouble now, would you allow us to give you each a once-over?"

"Once-over," Seth repeated, plainly. More of a question than anything else, that prompted a nod from the younger Holton.

"Sleep here tonight and put up with our quizzing. We're... very curious people." She leaned in on those last three words, her hand hovering over her heart as an earnest smile fell into place on her pretty face.

Dean evidently wasn't experiencing the same feelings as his hesitant brothers. "Once-over. Nice. Sounds touchy. I'll bet things would go smoother if the one doing the touching was a tall redhead." His eyes flitted to Sheldi, who smiled fleetingly and then averted her own to picking some lint off the strap covering her shoulder.

The scrapper was feigning the delicate consternation that flashed across his mug-- furrowing his brows and sinking his stubbly jaw-- but his offense at being grabbed around the crook of his arm by Maya and drug two feet backwards was most definitely real. He quickly wrenched himself away from her, startled. Seth cruelly chuckled at the wounded look on his face.

"Tall? I've never been called that," the older woman said, only adding to the hilarity.

"Nah." The lack of humor twinkling in her eyes seemed to fuel Dean's adamance to remove himself from her focus. She made another grab for him and he dodged it, an angry wrinkle forming between his eyebrows. "That's fine; I've been assessed by worse, 'n I really don't wanna get myself stuck in a rut, y-you know what I'm sayin?'"

"Sorry, Maya. Dean's coy sometimes." Seth forced the statement out for all he was worth, cutting a fierce track in front of Dean's path.

Maya took advantage of Dean's breaking to glower at his little brother and began anew pushing persistently at his chest. She backed him up into the beige stone table covered in pale paper. "That's enough, now. It won't take long."

He was stewing. She picked his left hand up off his lap once he was sitting down and let it drop again, deepening his frown. The expression lightened and made room for wild-eyed astonishment when her palms enclosed on either side of his neck, and with said grip she pulled him in to look him square in the eyes. Not for the purpose of looking him in the eyes, Seth reckoned, but rather to look  _squarely_  at the eyes themselves.

There was a pouch he failed to notice off to the side, hanging by its strap on two stuck out nubs in the stone. Maya dug around inside and pulled out a variety of things she set aside next to Dean-- likely only to narrow her search; a pen, a mini flashlight, a cheese knife, a slightly larger, sharper-bladed knife that probably wasn't for cheese... She dropped a tiny button and a stringy red thread down, along with a lengthy strip of cloth. Finally she came back up brandishing a stethoscope.

"What're my vitals? Care to share with the class?" Dean stressing the words so hard-- making sure every last bit of disdain he felt bled into them-- meant he probably wasn't asking in all seriousness. His concerned face did kick up a notch when she ignored his jeering voice altogether and pulled the bottom of his shirt away from his body. The tool moved up beneath the fabric and Dean winced and scowled at it being pressed against his bare chest.

Seth drew a little closer to the action. He was leaning far one way, vying for a better view of the unofficial checkup going on. "Would his heartbeat be that irregular?"

"Anything could be different," she replied. "A heart that's always going-- always pounding like it's... running away from something," she motioned to her own chest as she spoke, drawing her hand to and away to mimic a heart rate, "is no good. Shouldn't be pumping as quick as it is by human standards, unless you're excited or afraid."

"And what's Dean's like?" Roman asked of her.

She chuffed and pulled the scope out, allowing the black fabric to fall. "He's mad at me now; fast and skipping." Her left hand made short work pulling the receiving ear pads off. It burrowed back under his shirt again and landed on his side this time, making him jolt. Her attention was no longer on that, as she swiveled around to look at Seth and asked, importantly, "But should I wager it's always beating this fast?"

"No," he instantly said. It was unthinking. He was starting to feel the slightest bit uncomfortable talking about Dean when he was sitting right there in front of them, but Maya was seemingly desensitized-- or at the very least indifferent-- to the protocol of treating someone that way.

One thing he learned during the small time watching the two interact was that they could carry with them the same wide range of contempt in just their faces-- particularly if it was for each other. The more he growled and fidgeted, the more irritated she looked, and the more roughly she handled him. He was provoking her, but he snapped first.

Her arm was still inclined after plucking a short hair from his head. He recovered from the meager twinge of pain very quickly, in time to backhand it. "'S'any of this crap necessary? If'n I'm ever gonna learn manners from anybody, it sure as hell ain't gonna be from you."

"Relax," was all she said. He squinted at her.

There was very little fussing after that-- from either of them! Sheldi could be heard breathing a sigh of relief as her mother finished up with him. Her eyes darted to Seth immediately next to her. "I think you need an ice pack, right?"

He was clearly swallowing back a barb. When all of this concern and kindness sunk in, it was difficult to determine how to react to it. And how could they tell he was sore, anyway?

"Thanks, but I can go without."

"But why should you?" Maya asked.

Needless to say, they were a couple'a compliers tonight, so Seth wound up with a proper plastic pack of ice cubes stuck up his shirt before he could argue against their logic.


	12. The Tendency

 

* * *

 

Roman was honing in on the wounded expression Dean wore over by the altar. He kept the heels of Seth's nearby boots in his periphery, pretty damn persistent about staying watchful even in spite of all his suspicions slowly and gradually coming up negative, but focused a little more closely on the gorgeous young woman giving him a once-over similar to the one Maya had given his younger brother.

It was easy to figure things were safe right about now. For them, anyway; the only apparent threat at this time was Dean tearing up the living room in a fit of defiance.

The younger of the two Holtons tilted his head back, scrutinizing pupils staring into unsettled pupils. Despite the fact that perfect eye contact was being made, it was somehow still so guarded. Especially since Roman already watched her mother perform the deed and knew no exception was being made for him.

"So, he wouldn't... by any chance be the second oldest in your little 'group,' would he?"

Maybe it was the lack of trust, but Roman didn't particularly care for the way she said 'group.' The armrest creaked beneath his weight as he shifted. "You mean Dean?"

"Yeah," she replied, calmly.

"Yeah, he is. Seth's the youngest."

"Ahh." She let his head go, and the strain on his neck disappeared. It wasn't that he couldn't initially free himself; it was _certainly_ that she was even stronger than she appeared, which was still quite strong without the extra _oomph_. "So you call the shots then, huh?"

"Nah. We don't got a hierarchy, or anything like that. We usually just go by which brother's got the best idea. No self-respecting squadron operates according to..." _Huh._ He brought a fist up to his mouth and cleared his throat. He may have been making some kind of point, but he didn't care for the sudden gravel in his voice. "Why'd you ask, anyway?"

Sheldi sighed and her shoulders slouched, but her smile was still there, tired though it was. "Far be it from me to compare people I just met to old friends, but the _last_ trio my mom and I worked with who were like you guys... I guess they... did? Have a sort of hierarchy, I mean. But, more than that, the middle _sibling_ , I suppose, was sort of like Dean. Didn't really take too kindly to my mom poking around like that; kind of an angry type, although not unkind. Interesting stuff. Especially, probably, for me, since I'm making comparisons from not only the last three but the three before them, who I never met."

 _Damn_ , did this chick ramble.

"Um, do your ribs hurt as much as Seth's do?" she inquired, thereby stunning him with how fast she changed the subject.

"Tch. Uh, no," he answered. He was surprised to feel an unplanned chuckle come out with it.  

 

 

"Hey, you."

The amiable voice pulled Seth from his daydreaming. His arms were propped on the railing right outside the door, looking out on the calm, dark night surrounding him. He didn't remember exactly when it was he snuck out, but he did remember the half-wary look Sheldi gave him right before he left. She'd been doing her thing with Roman at the time, but now she was right behind him, silhouetted by the light from the inside right before the door shut.

He turned around to smile at her. She tucked some hair behind her ear and sidled up next to him.

"Don't think I forgot about you," she said, softly barreling a flat hand into his temple. "I'm happy this is as far as you got; I was worried you walked out on us."

"Nah." Saying she made him feel safe would be an understatement. Seth turned to face her fully and tipped his head down. She hummed in amusement and mussed his hair on the crown before plucking a strand of it. Her movements were fluid and seamless. The pain didn't last ten seconds.

And she was probably gushing at his compliance. "Oh, you're the sweet one. I can tell."

He made a face, but in the current lighting he doubted she saw it. "Roman 'n Dean-- they're softies. I reckon you didn't catch 'em at the best of times. Me, though, I've got... more of a temper than I'm caring to put on display right now." He reached up to scratch an itch on his face, but she caught his hand to look at his nails so it never happened. He continued talking anyway: "And I'm the little brother, but they never look over the things I have to say or offer. They're good."

"Seth, Dean, 'n Roman; your names go nicely together. How long have you known each other?"

"Three years."

"Huh. Seems like a pretty short amount of time to start calling each other 'brother.'" Her tone was casual, but it didn't sit casual in Seth's mind as she continued on, "I'm... sorry. Did that come out rude? It came out rude."

"No, it's fine," he reassured her. "We've said ruder."

Ohhh... wasn't that the truth.

Sheldi sighed in direct response to that. The fatigue of the day setting in could be heard in her voice. "You know, you dudes have me all confused."

Seth nodded soberly and swallowed, looking out over the railing, far away from her if only mentally. "Sorry. We never thought we'd... be here."  

 

 

Break time hit. It meant they were safe from prodding and questions and more prodding for the rest of the night, because it really was getting late. The Holtons didn't own a clock, but it had to have been going on 1 or 2 AM.. Maya was suspicious of them leaving-- particularly after the long tussle she had with Dean.

"I want out," he even said, throwing his hands up and walking away from the altar. Roman barred him back and received a dirty look for it; leaving wasn't an option simply because hope was slim in the way of finding a sanctuary quite like this one again.

They had to arm-wrestle the older lady into letting them sit out at the picnic table in the clearing. Some time to themselves with nobody overhearing sounded blessed right about now.

Dean took up one whole bench with his body; lying on his back and saying that he would "think about sleeping out here tonight." Seth covered his eyes one hand each, leaning on his elbows and sighing deeply.

"I, uh... I mean, 'sides the obvious, can I worry about somethin' for a minute?" Roman spoke, pulling the inquiry out of nowhere and making Seth peek out behind one of his hands.

"Permission granted?" he asked more than said.

"I just fell _straight_ into Helmsmen dialect earlier, when I was talking to Sheldi. I don't think I can get used to this whole 'answering to no one' thing; not if my mind and body don't agree with..." His hand rose and ghosted over his chest, so fleeting in nature that Seth almost didn't see it. The older then scoffed and shook his head. Both hands formed fists, and simultaneously braced against his tightly closed mouth as he stared off into space. "Nothing. It's not like Helmsley didn't say we could never come back. Return to the fold, 'n... whatnot."

Seth had to think about that for a few seconds. "He... _didn't_ say that, though."

"No?" Roman wasn't usually so forgetful. He angled his nose down and glared at the tabletop before saying, with newfound, _profound_ clarity, "Huh. That's right. Am I really that used to taking orders from the guy?"  

" _You're_ 'the guy' now, Roman," their middle brother chimed in, grumbling into his arms that were draped over his face. Dean didn't sit up; he just continued on the conversation without making eye contact with either of them. "And, uhh... I dunno; whattaya boys make of it? I think we might be training to become professional dogs over the next few days. Any concerns?"

"I don't even know what I should and shouldn't be worried for. Our gracious hosts haven't told us the risks yet," Seth answered.

Roman cocked his head to the side at the only brother whose expression he could actually make of at the moment, sitting right next to him. "Maybe there are none."

"'Uh?"

"Risks. I'm thinkin' there might not be anything specifically we should be running in the other direction from... but that don't mean there ain't other things we should be careful about. What's a dog's life like?"

Seth gently scoffed. "Average, or Demon Spawn?"

 _Of course_ , not to forget the ruthless Doberman Pinscher that clown, Curly, owned. The one that was trying to break down their doors back on the boardwalk two nights ago. Helmsley had a wide, gaping scar on his wrist the shape of a bite mark from one of its brutal attacks. In fact, their very outlook on dogs was a whole lot different after one too many encounters with this beast. It was funny the topic was coming up now.

"Average," said Roman, with lips pulling up in an ill-humored smile.

"Oh, uh, actually... I don't have the slightest idea. Don't you, like... take 'em for walks? Build houses for 'em?"

"Okay, so... imagine what would've happened if we were walkin' around the same way we were a few hours ago, full-on dog, and it wasn't right smack in the middle of Sapling Forest. The people who'd see us-- their first assumption wouldn't be that we're men in dog bodies; they'd just think we're dogs."

"Right."

Roman looked at him, long and hard, like he was expecting him to say something and only winding up empty-handed for it. "You want anything to do with that?"

"Wh-- I--" He faltered and his smirk disappeared. Dean picked his shoulders and head up off the bench to gawk as hard as their older brother was, which was when Seth had enough of questions for the night. "I don't know! Quit hurlin' theory at me!"

For such volume, a straight face was something he could not keep, and when they got up off the bench after some time and started back towards the hut, they did so with smiles on their faces.

 

* * *

 

_Raindrops pelted the windows of the Furst Warehouse, but in this new, impressively tall, hauntingly reclusive room Seth entered, sounds from the outside seemed a world away. The door sucked shut behind him. He was ushered into a seat at a table with a chilly, metal surface._

_"It's Seth, right?" Across from him sat a man in a suit and tie. His hair was back in a ponytail. When he spoke, his voice bounced around the cylindrical, artificially lit space. "The name is Hunter Helmsley. I'm your boss. I'll be overseeing everything it is that you'll be doing here, from now until some unspecified time in the future when you can't or won't anymore. Whichever comes first, right?"_

_"I understand," he replied, passively._ _A brow was lifted questionably, though. Helmsley must have been ignoring it;_

_"What I wanted you in here for was to... get to know you a little better, all right? If I could hear your voice some more, if I could hear you talk about yourself... Tell me about your strengths. Gimme a list. Spare me the caution label rundown about your weaknesses; I'll learn them on my own. In due time, I promise you won't even have them anymore."_

_"Leave out my weaknesses?" Seth asked. This could have been his very first test, after all._

_"Yes. This isn't a job interview, Seth; you already got the gig. Whatever you throw at me, we'll work with it." He leaned back in his seat with his hands clasped over his stomach, smiling all civil-like._

_Seth somehow got the feeling that he wasn't always this pleasant._ _He allowed himself to ease back in his chair as well. Not sitting upright and attentive felt all kinds of wrong to him, but Helmsley made no comment about his failure to do so. Maybe it was all in his head._

_"I'mma..." He gave his lower lip an idle rub; what was he?_

_"You can take your time with it," Hunter stated, sounding complacent. He was telling the truth._

_"I'm-- I'm certainly in shape," he finally put forth. His arms were crossed over his chest, and his thumb flitted in exploratory fashion across the warm skin in the crease of his elbow. If he was being honest, he could hardly believe this body was his._

_His new boss nodded. "Certainly," he agreed. "Able-bodied men with a backbone; it's the first thing I ask for. I mean, I_ didn't _actually..." He trailed off that time._

_Seth cocked his head innocently. "You didn't actually what?"_

_"Nothin.' Just... just go on. You're in shape-- I can see that. So how much can a guy like you bench press, huh?"_

_"Oh, I," he averted his eyes to the rim of the tabletop, "dunno." He put his wrist up and tapped his finger rather impulsively. Hunter's expression didn't change._

_"You don't know?"_

_His heart sunk into his gut. He needed a way out now. "No, I guess I never... made note of that." Ah, got it! "Hey, ya know what else I think I can do? I'mma really fast runner. You got any other guys in your arsenal who can go a few laps?"_

_"Shaun Bold is my fastest runner... probably because he spends his days running away." Helmsley's eyes were intense. "I'll schedule a race-- see who's got more in them."_

_Seth nodded gallantly and stopped tapping. His smile was very genuine._ _"That'd be great. Can't wait."_

_"Now, before you lay anything else on me, I need to ask: how good are you with handling yourself in a fight? Hold your own decent? What's your stance like?" And in an instant, Seth's mind was spinning once again. "Can you... give me a description of your style going in, and how much you stick to it?"_

_Seth frowned. Before he even said anything, the older man sitting across from him hardened his features, as if he knew the things his new recruit was about to say weren't going to be things he'd consider ideal._ _"I never... I--" He coughed into his forearm. "I've never actually been in a fight before."_

_Helmsley glared daggers at him, like he was officially marked offended. "Never?"_

_It wasn't really a question. A repeated statement, more like._

_"Yeah. I'm sorry if that's not what you wanted to hear, but, uh..."_

_"Seth." He only said the name to garner unwavering attention. Seth felt his lower spine prickle at the shift in tone, because his higher-up's tone was sharp spitting his name and icy from there on out, and it probably meant he pissed him off. "Here, in this domain, you will be fighting a lot. That much I guarantee."_

_He nodded timidly. "Yes."_

_And it was never an issue from that day forward._

 

* * *

 

Light from the moon seeped into the modestly-sized guest bedroom Sheldi brought to their attention.

Well, it was a guest bedroom, yes, but it lacked any sort of bed. The floor worked fine.

Seth was settling in to close his eyes, mulling things over, and drowning in the newfound quiet. He heard a gentle exhale leave the firm body to his right, and propped himself on an elbow to jokingly speak: "Hey, Dean, how 'bout makin' yourself useful 'n givin' up a decent pillow to me?"

There was no answer. Not even a hushed one, or a snarky one. Just silence, and a steady breathing pattern. It was obviously for the better, even though the younger felt that there was too much left unsolved today to even consider sleep. He  _was_ ridiculously tired.

So he let his head fall back, smiling at the friendly, cool draft, and relaxed. He stayed in that position for a long while...

...and, unexpectedly, it changed by way of furry mass nudging under his wrist. Seth just barely managed to refrain from pulling away, and turned his head sharply to investigate before something else changed.

There that playful peach-furred hound was once again, curled up so the palm of Seth's hand comfortably rested in the deep slope between shoulder and hip. Seth's expression didn't change under the abrupt realization that Dean did in fact hear him and comply. He stroked his hand over the soft fur and kept it sitting where it stopped, shutting his eyes closed again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The black-and-blue dog silhouette pictures may not make much sense yet. At least, not these last three, concluding with the one heading this chapter. But I can say that the first three at the beginning of the story aligned with the dog forms Seth, Dean, and Roman assume, as well as the point of view in each guy's respective chapter! The one shown here and in the past two chapters will remain a mystery for now.


	13. Road Rules

_"On a scale from one to ten, how good of a leader do you think you are?"_

_"Ten," answered Roman in his surest, deepest tone of voice. "I'm whatever you need from me. I wager I could scare a few goons off if you needed it, and I ain't afraid of anything."_

_Helmsley looked agreeable about everything so far. "You know, I knew you were a promising catch, Roman. I can't find a single attribute I'm displeased with... not that that was the goal of this talk."_

_He fixed his new recruit with a tried grimace. "However, that..._ is _the only thing you've said aloud so far. If you could explain to me why you're such a quiet guy, I might consider a more..._ eminent _role in Helmsmen for you to play."_

 

* * *

 

The Holton Hut was nice digs, plain and simple. It looked even nicer at day, and smelled like fresh air instead of candle wax. The owl on the roof moved on and Maya was in the kitchen talking to herself.

That was, it became apparent the farther down the stairs Sheldi led them. The athletic redhead gave all three men a high sign that seemed to say she didn't want them following her in. She departed, leaving them at the landing in the interior mouth of the living room, and walked with purpose to the narrow archway of the quiet kitchen in question.

"Mom? They're awake, if it's... all right for them to browse again?"

"Yeh," answered the elder, shortly. She went on to add, "How is Seth handling today? Feeling better?"

"You can ask him for yourself."

On contrary to what they were expecting, the kitchen was very likely the smallest room in the hut next to an unfound broom closet. It was longer than it was wide, expanding far to your left upon entry. The only thing standing to your right was a pantry door.

Just barely wide enough to fit a table for eating at, and even then it was a bit of a squeeze to get past and over to the counters. On its surface sat no other food except a large bowl with an assortment of different colored berries inside.

"Hey, you two are my people," Dean amiably said, whilst snatching a few in record time. A ruffled grin stretched Sheldi's lips as she watched him eat the ones he stole. She pulled the bowl out of his reach without urgency and arched a brow.

"They're not for you; they're for your other half."

He looked around in a gradually drawn blank, still chewing.

"My mother," she said, turning her head in a nod of acknowledgment to the older woman, "will be teaching you some things today, about what you can-- and can't-- do. Once you're out in the world again, I mean."

"Easy, Shelds, easy; we've only been here a night," Seth reasoned, with half a smirk on his face to do the opposite of help his case. "You make it sound like this...  _lovely home_... isn't part of the world."

She flicked some of his overhanging hair out of his eyes, suddenly appearing very sober and serious until she answered, without waver, "No one's called me 'Shelds' since I was a teenager."

"Heh. You're welcome?"

Sheldi said nothing more of it. "And, about the other thing: I don't get out much. Sorry for any future misinterpretations about the place you guys came from." With that she turned to look at Maya, saying gravely, "I swear it's like the land around us moves but we never do. Ded, Anne, Iggy--  _their_  clothes didn't carry the smell of secondhand smoke and exhaust from the street!"

Maya furrowed her brows at her daughter. "Sheldi, hush up."

Roman was the only one left to himself, standing around while Dean slid into a chair at the table and put his chin down on the surface and Maya checked on Seth through relative silence and communication through head motions. "Wait, who're 'Ded, Anne--?'"

"You don't need to worry about it," replied Maya. She tilted her chin up to look Seth in the eye, returned her gaze to the extremely tender place of impact she knew to be under his shirt, and then back up again. She made a squeezing gesture with her hand over the area without touching and he firmly shook his head 'no.'

That was that. She didn't need to speak another word to him about it.

 

 

"Of course, the goal we hope to achieve with the three of you-- should you choose to hang around-- is making sure you've got your shifting abilities down. You should be able to move from one body to the other at will, not spurred by, say, a passing emotion. You should also know how to resist shifting when your body wants to more than you do."

"Like back on the side of the road," Seth assumed.

Together, they walked through the woodland a yard removed from the hut, hopping little ditches and touching tree trunks in close passing. The morning sun filtered through the spaces between. It was refreshingly brisk out in spite of that.

Sheldi darted a look over her shoulder, smiling invigoration. "It's looking like a clear sky today, Mom."

"Pales in comparison to the clouds we'll have tomorrow," Maya replied, not cracking a smile in kind. "We should fit in all the time we have outdoors today before the rain drives us back under our roof."

Despite her occasional shakiness, she spoke with surprising clarity when it counted.

Sheldi's smile faltered. She turned her eyes back onto the uneven path ahead of her and didn't look to her mother anymore, no matter how much she had to. "These woods are, we hope, an area you will get acquainted to in the coming months," she said after a brief minute, this time directing her words onto their three 'charges,' "if you really do decide to fully embrace our help."

"I've already embraced it," Dean said to her. She turned her head to look right at him, taking in his suave smirk and steady eye contact. She sighed, as if she was bummed out about what she was going to say next.

"All right... Everyone here, he's mine," she very abruptly went and announced, making Seth chuckle. Roman nudged Dean in the shoulder to get his attention, then gave him a thumbs up. "Just gettin' that out there. I can't wait to start." The youngest Holton meant that last sentence solely for Dean. She smiled knowingly at him. It was all written in the stars, obviously.

"You can have him," said Maya, dryly. Her grumpiness may have been a joke that time, but it was honestly hard to tell.

 

-

 

"'Imagine yourself looking through the eyes of just such an animal. Consider how your society views them and respond accordingly to the setting you're in. You certainly wouldn't want to make yourself look like you're a dog if you're standing in a room with a man who's notorious for kicking them.'"

That was the first piece of advice Maya handed to Seth, as she walked a circle around him once and read off a scrap of notebook paper. The paper part threw him more than the words themselves did.

"I'm surprised you've got this written down. How many times has this happened again?"

The look she gave him was similar to the one she often gave Sheldi; miffed and heaps sardonic with all the knowledge she was trying to get out in a four hour burst of note-reading. "Three, including you and your brothers."

"Damn, I would think  _more_  than that. You came prepared."

She just shook her head. "I spent far too much time with both groups to not pick up on a few things. Now," her voice took on an entirely new inflection as she quickly changed the subject, "show me how fast you can shift down."

 

- 

 

"'In the same breath, I will fervently caution that letting someone see you shift is just as dangerous as any one wrong person seeing you in strictly one form or the other is. Don't let anyone see you change to or from dog. You must find a safe place with no eyes on you before you even so much as make an attempt.'"

Sheldi lowered the paper from her face, and, after a moment of disconcerting eye-gauging, she smiled widely at Dean, as if she didn't know what else to do with her face.

He crossed his arms over his chest and teetered back on the spot to look extra svelte, brows furrowing. "Why'd you say, 'In the same breath?' You didn't say anything before that."

"I'm--" She thunked the flimsy sheet with the back of her hand. "I'm reading what my mom wrote! She thinks I'm gonna spew jargon at you."

"I'd  _loooove_ to hear your jargon," Dean said with a single, firm nod of his head, meaning it sincerely. He wouldn't have had the nerve to say it if Maya had been within earshot, granted, but he still meant it.

Sheldi looked a little surprised at his lack of amorousness, that had been present in all of his regarding of her thus far. She took an absent glance back at the paper, then back at him again, before giving him a few gentle slaps to the upper arm. "Thanks."

He smiled and went to return the gesture, but she seized him by the wrist, allowing a fleeting frown to appear.

"Wait." Sheldi let it go just as fast, if only to let him know that she wasn't about to stare at his fingernails. "Did it sink in?"

"Did what sink in?"

"The stuff my mom wrote. This was an important one I just read aloud, and I wanna make sure..." She fretfully trailed off.

He smirked and nodded his head. "Keep my deal secret. Log it away. I can't figure why I would need to do that... but I've got it up here anyway," he accentuated his point by jamming a finger against the side of his head, still staring convincingly-- kookily-- at her.

Her shoulders shook in an inward laugh. "Yeah, I'm not sure why, either, to be honest." She bumped her hip against his in passing and beckoned for him with a flyaway hand motion. "C'mon. I'll read you the other details while I show you the fence I still need to fix, and other neat stuff."

 

-

 

_'If someone who has it out for you finds out about what you can do, don't assume that someone isn't going to treat you the same as they would when you're human. When you're in your 'Canid Form,' as we call it, you're weaker. You weigh less, everything man-made looks bigger, you have no means of brandishing a weapon, and you can be more easily taken advantage of. You shouldn't be assuming that form if you're not somewhere at least mostly safe, with safe company. Around people who you know won't hurt you, or try to.'_

To no one but himself, Roman read the words, back against a tree trunk and eyes overshadowed by his hair. He looked up and saw Dean and Sheldi disappear behind some bushes. Seth and Maya were still in the clearing; the former fell to his hands and knees in the evident process of trying to shift again, grabbing at his ribs. Roman pushed off in seconds.

"What's wrong with you?"

"He's injured," Maya answered, like she forgot he knew.

Seth groaned and staggered back to his feet without help. "Not injured; just beat. I think that Von Bellman screwed me up worse than I thought."

Well, for obvious reasons, Maya wouldn't understand that. She placed a hand on her hip while the other hand partway crushed the notebook paper with the scribblings on it, looking expectant. Roman rolled his eyes and wasted a moment brushing the dirt off Seth's back while the younger man elaborated:

"That was a part of our jobs. It was two nights ago; we were defending property belonging to our boss... or, trying to get it _back_ , anyway... and I got thrown to the floor and kicked a few times. Nothing too extreme, honestly."

"Well, I didn't beat their asses into the ground for it, so it couldn't've been that bad," Roman reasoned.

Maya nodded as she took all this in, nice and slow. " _When_ was it you said you shifted for the first time?"

"Ah, that was the following night."

She shrugged, having already reached a conclusion. "Then that explains it. Another thing you're to learn about the two forms you can inhabit is that when you're in one, the other makes no progress. Rest is one thing, but healing is another."

"I, uhh... I don't think I follow."

The response didn't faze her. She gave him a pat to the upper arm and then walked out in front of the two of them, nodding at the adjacent cluster of trees like there was a person standing there. Actually kind of eerie. "I don't expect you to learn all of this right away. To be informed of so much in such a short few hours ought to be overwhelming-- especially when it pertains to knowledge about yourself."

Roman felt his eyes begin to squint again; it seemed like that was all they did lately. "You'd think that'd make it _easier_."

"I wish you were right." He thought he saw her smile when she said it, if faintly.

They carried on with their "training", which was really more an interactive conversation. Roman was more involved this time, if only by supporting Seth's shoulder with his own every second of the time, pushing him one way when he swayed another. He really didn't mind a single bit.  


	14. Work Starts

Seth's voice grew noticeably fainter and eventually melded with the birdsong the farther away Sheldi led him from the hut, Dean noticed. The path they walked wasn't packed; far from dry, like anything could grow anywhere if given the chance to. Sheldi moved like she knew exactly where she was going. Dean got the impression she was taking him somewhere specific.

Didn't she say something about a fence? That certainly  _was_  an easy detail to forget fast. He had no doubt things got dreadfully uneventful out here. He had spent far too much time in the city to be physically capable of thinking otherwise.

"Whoa, wait," whispered Sheldi, throwing out an arm to bar him back and stopping in her tracks, causing Dean to run into her. He looked over her shoulder as her eyes darted around the landscape in front of them. Nothing much else besides a wall of trees, tiny patches of shrubbery, and a forked pathway. The woman's head turned from left to right slowly, in calculated survey surely practiced in advance.

With his face inches away from it, Dean couldn't help but notice that she had a few stray orange and brown leaves tangled up in her long curls. The best explanation for this was that they had been in there since the day before and he was just blind.

"Did you hear that?" asked Sheldi, breaking his already thoroughly distracted train of thought. He unclenched his fists when  _her_  muscles visibly loosened, calling off the demand for alertness. A sense of tension that had already passed.

"I didn't hear anything." He had no other good sense except to tell the truth.

"It was... The way the birds sounded; it wasn't right. It makes me think this animal I've been tracking is near our hut again." She reinitiated the single file walk as she talked, clearing the way with her combat boots for Dean who stuck closely behind her. "It's a dangerous creature. I wouldn't trust it if it learned to talk and  _told me_  it was going to stay away."

"Stay away?" he questioned. Sadly the next words that jumped into his head were put on hold, as the he tripped over a long, elevated root in their path. Sheldi quickly turned and grabbed him by flailing forearm as he grappled for something to hold onto, which was also her. She slowly uprighted him.

"Sorry," she said, finally letting go with a taxed sigh. "I knew that was there. I forgot to say anything."

_Too much city time, maybe..._

Dean waved off her apology and scanned the ground ahead of him before he made another move. "Um... the creature; you said you wanted it to stay away from your hut, but you're tracking it?"

"Well, yes. It usually  _does_  stay away, because it's a nomadic type and all. But every now and then, it shows up around us. I think we have some kind of food that it... likes." He could see her shaking her head, like she was breaking herself out of a stupor. He barely noticed they took the right path in the fork, and were winding around a small hill packed with tall trees. The tops of which added to the incredibly full canopy, hardly allowing light to filter through anymore. The shadows had no more breaks to be seen in them.

Up ahead, the path faded out. He didn't notice the mostly intact wood fence because it blended in so well with everything else, against a tiny, run-down shack that was falling to pieces and didn't blend  _quite_  so well.

Sheldi whistled. Not in tune, or in direct reaction to what was ahead of them, but in a way where the sound carried.

"You can meet somebody else in our family while you're here."

They listened as heavy feet plodded through the unmanaged, tall grass around the old shack. Then, from around the corner of the structure, the white, long face of a horse poked out, front legs and massive body coming next. Covered in excessive, dark brown spots, with a lighter flaxen mane. The equine trotted right on up to Sheldi, who ran ahead. The path widened enough to allow for a group not consisting of a single file line.

Even still, Dean hung back, knowing for sure that if dogs were one unpleasant thing, horses were entirely another.

"This is Kicker," said Sheldi, giving the large animal's nose a tender stroke with her splayed hand. "There's no place for him on our grounds, so I take care of him here. No clue where he came from."

"Does he let you ride him?"

"No. That's... sort of how he got his name." She chuckled, but there was an implication of pain behind it. "I have a giant bruise to show for it, believe me. It definitely doesn't help solve any questions about this horse's origins."

Dean only knew of two places in their immediate (within driving distance) world where a horse could be found. Neither one of them made that much more sense than Sapling Forest. Dean briefly wondered, also, if Sheldi would even know what he was talking about if he mentioned either place, because he was getting the sense that she didn't leave this woodland much.

"So... have ya ever heard of Eon Point?" he asked, in a state of diminishing interest.

Sheldi thought for a moment. "Actually-" she started, only to be cut off by what sounded like a heavy snapping of thick wood, startling Kicker, whose face jerked away from her hand. Again the sound rung out, echoing up through the trunks of trees and making the ground quake.

A splintering, cracking, _ruining_ sound, biting its way unpleasantly into their ears. Kicker was the least willing to hear out the noise in its entirety and pranced out of reach of the woman previously petting him, a spooked grunt escaping him.

"Kick- ...er." A startled gasp. She was seeing something that Dean, so far, was failing to. A movement in the tall grass around the shack, or the brief flash of brown that streaked by behind the unbroken slats in the fence. The horse's big snout bumped Dean on the shoulder in passing; he was moving to get behind him, seemingly... but Dean couldn't deny _he_ would have felt safer if he had an over one-thousand pound animal standing between him and imminent danger.

Amidst the lulls of brown, yellow stripes could be seen on the shiny husk of this creature that lurked in Kicker's pen space. It gurgled in a way Dean wouldn't normally have deemed so threatening a sound... but from the maw of this emerging beast, it did succeed in unsettling him; popping his confident bubble and making him realize Sheldi definitely knew her stuff.

"Ohhh, okay, not- not the good kind of surprise, 'm'afraid." She backed up slowly, pulling her dagger out.

"What is that?" Dean asked, after swallowing back his unease and forcing himself to walk up and flank her. The scaly-looking monster with a color scheme mimicking a nasty mixture of mud and mustard slid almost entirely effortlessly through a narrow slat in the fence, creeping noisily up to them.

"Remember the friendly fella I was talking about? This is him." She stretched an arm out in front of Dean's chest again, which he found to be frustratingly routine by this point. "He can sound like anything-- including birds. It's important to know the slight difference between it and the real thing, so you don't get..."

"Ssss-windled?" Dean sounded out. It was probably due to nerves. He still backed up in time with her, honestly feeling nothing but appalled at how large this being was the closer it got to inflicting harm on them.

"In a word," Sheldi answered, not taking her eyes off of the thing. "Was going to say 'disemboweled', but I like your word better."

It was seconds after she said it that the incensed, reptilian creature lashed out, a thick tail of astonishing length swinging towards them. It had spikes at the tip resembling a trident; they narrowly missed the black fabric of Dean's shirt when Sheldi manually flipped him around to make a run for it, and grazed Kicker's flank with enough force behind it to scare the poor horse out of his wits.

The stallion reared back and slammed his hooves onto the forest floor with a certain frightened heaviness. It was right before he took off running down the path Dean and Sheldi took to get there, leaving the redheaded woman to pause in her escape efforts and reach a hand out after him, thinking in some irrational section of her mind that she could call him back.

Sensing the distraction at play, the overgrown lizard took a full frontal swipe at her with both sets of claws. Not to slash or scratch, but simply to _push_ , Dean realized. The move shoved Sheldi to the ground; she landed on her back with a grunt and brandished her weapon tightly in front of her, focus renewed. The creature pounced her, ducking his head under her first attempted stab with the dagger. Her being pushed sent Dean stumbling back, where he took no more than three seconds to rebound; he dove in with his fears forgotten, arms trapping the dog-sized beast between them as he wrestled him off Sheldi.

_Dog-sized..._

Dean didn't notice the hesitation in the mannerisms of his adversary until he wound up on the bottom of their rolling, tussling exchange. The lizard was gawking down at him, uncomfortably violet-hued eyes wide with what almost looked like _recognition_.

And then that tail swung back for a second time, trident spikes looking sharper than before somehow.

With his tongue caught between his teeth, Dean shut his eyes, trying to imagine a smaller frame for himself. A smaller _build_. Something that would-

"Are you _crazy_?!"

His careful strategizing was interrupted by Sheldi. Her boot flew past his line of sight, landing a kick to the creature's face that removed it posthaste, no fancy strategy involved or even required. Her hands were quickly secured under Dean's arms, making him gasp and vault. She pulled him back just until he got his bearings, which... which was when he **shifted** , quite inconveniently.

He only knew for sure when he took into account how much lighter he felt. Sheldi let go of his arms-turned-forelegs, scoffing. 

"Was that you trying to be tactful?" she asked.

He didn't have an answer for her. That was the only convenient part, given that all a proper response would sound like to her was whining and yipping!

_This is a pretty good way of copping out of having to talk to people, come to think._

"All right then," Sheldi said. Sighed, more like. Dean didn't have a chance running before she bent down and scooped him up off the ground, proving how essentially weightless he was. He found himself clutching her left shoulder with two slung-over paws that suddenly felt so much bigger than they were, getting jostled around in her arms as she carried him and ran.

Where she first accumulated such an instinct, he didn't know. The only thing he knew was that he felt woefully unaccomplished.

 

* * *

 

_All that grounded him was the reflection of his madly drumming fingers on the surface of the table._

_Honestly, Dean was_ scared _; it was too dark in here for his liking, it was too cold, and he was taking a pre-mature hint in that this man sitting across from him didn't trust him a smidge. That he was biding his time and meticulously deciding in his head what he was planning on doing to him-- no, to_ all _who sat across from him at this table. And none of these options were good ones, probably._

_Most likely, Dean was in danger. He didn't like his odds._

_He had already answered a few basic questions. The only reason he knew them to be 'basic' was because this guy sitting across from him told him they were. But, aside from that, they had done nothing but confuse Dean. He didn't understand why such puzzling, thought-provoking inquiries could be collectively summed up as run-of-the-mill and_ simple _. He felt as though his very way of thinking was being intruded on!_

_'Hunter' still had his hands clasped over his mouth, eyes deviated a mile away-- or just to the adjacent wall a few feet behind Dean's back. He still seemed to be mulling over the latest answer Dean gave him to his most recent question; a simple, "What were the conditions of the last place you lived in?" And, when Dean realized he lacked an answer, the older cut back in with a snide-sounding, "The trunk of my car? A circus tent?"_

_And... he seemed_ surprised _, for a reason Dean had still been trying to figure out, when the younger slammed his hand down on the table and said with certainty, "Yes, possibly. The second one."_

_Now he was being inspected again. Carefully._

_"I see you have your jokes." Except, Dean immediately thought, he_ hadn't _been joking. Not in the slightest. He just... couldn't provide an answer that wasn't fake, and car trunks sounded stuffy at best. He opted to remain silent instead of trying to defend himself, figuring it would only make his case sound worse._

 _"We'll come back to that. Right now I wanna ask the same thing I asked your other buddy, Seth... with some alteration: Do you have any experience at_  all _in_ _hand-to-hand combat? No vague answers allowed this time."_

_A metaphorical balloon popped in Dean's brain that day. He remembered it quite well; better than how the question sounded coming out, or Hunter's precise wording. He was pretty sure that was how it went, anyway._

_In any case, if his goal was to make his future boss' mistrust and anger towards him cool down, he failed miserably. He didn't know if it was the way the older man called Seth his "buddy" or if the question itself had him reeling, but_ oh lordy why am I laughing? Whywhywhy?! It's not funny!

 _Hunter propped his chin up on a tightly wound fist as he watched the evidently_ hilarious _turmoil that was going on in front of him. Dean tried to smother the sounds behind the back of his hand, but that only worked for so long, and besides that point, he still wasn't giving an answer that wasn't vague._

_"Maybe I wasn't clear," Hunter said, hands coming down to rest, flat-palmed and splayed, on the tabletop. "Why should I even bother with you? That's the question I should be asking."_

_So lost in this weird, uncharted mirth, Dean figured he couldn't possibly make the situation any better by this point, and so braved a weary, still-breathy, "Beats me," that was succeeded by more chuckling and eye-wiping._

_He didn't know what made it so funny. The instance had been fun while it lasted, though._

_He was about to get thrown out on his ass, no doubt.  
_

 

* * *

 

"What happened?" asked Maya, the second her daughter burst through the foliage with Dean in her arms, top mesh torn and hair ridden with snags. The older lady was standing in an incomplete circle with Roman and Seth, in the middle of an evident lecture.

Sheldi let out a loud sigh and fell to her knees in the process of letting Dean go, allowing him to trot ahead on rested paw pads. He stopped all too soon after, a concerned quirk in his whiskered features. He turned back around and walked tentatively up to her, head lowered and legs carrying him slow.

"Ugh... We ran into that beast I've been huntin', mom. It scared off Kicker, and I dunno where he went."

"Heh- _heeey_ , Dean!" Dean suddenly felt hands on his back, startling him away from Sheldi. Seth was above him rubbing his shoulders-- not unlike the way he would a regular dog-- like he thought the gesture was needed after the evidently grueling process of shifting forms. "Congrats on the shift! Maybe we're gettin' the hang of this after all."

"Yeah, I don't think so," Roman dryly said.

They were both right _and_ wrong. It wasn't like Dean could presently say anything on the matter.

Maya inclined a hand down and helped Sheldi to her feet, the expression on her face never changing. Sheldi's face, on the other hand, hosted a range of expressions from shocked, to angered, to fatigued, all in the duration of a few seconds. She reached down and gave Dean's head an easing pet in passing, flattening his perked ears.

"I've got some work to do," she said, in a way that suggested the words were only meant for her mother to hear.  _Dean_ heard them, nonetheless. He watched her wrist get released by Maya and then she herself begin to ascend the two tall sets of stairs, moving on to do whatever it was she needed to inside the hut.

"Agh, nuts, she seemed bummed," Seth said, tilting one way to get a better view of the departing woman over Maya's reapproaching shoulder.

The eldest gave her head a clearing shake. "Sheldi doesn't like to lose. She doesn't handle failure well. That includes minor setbacks."

"Well, Dean was there for the whole thing," Roman pointed out, making the briefest of eye contact with his currently-canid brother. Dean blinked. "I'm sure he can set the record straight, 'soon as he switches back to human. Sheldi doesn't seem like the losing type to me."

"Ha. We'd have better luck asking the thing that ravaged the both of 'em," Seth chuckled.

He might have been right on that account. Dean looked up at the three faces overhead with rapidly tucking ears and a cramped posture. He _may_ have whined, and offered up a despondent shake of his neck fur and head. He picked up a quick gait for the stairs and began climbing them himself, unsurprised when his brothers had nothing to say to his back. What surprised him far more was how much of a surreal process it was to go up stairs on legs that still felt so much like his arms.

By the time he reached the landing, he was curling his tail around his hind leg and peering down through the railing slats at the three on the floor of the forest, whose conversation he could no longer hear because of the great distance created by height.

Angling a look at the door, he realized Sheldi had clicked it shut, and no amount of pushing or wedging of the knob could get it open. Dean forced exasperated air out through his nose and proceeded to drag his nails down what short length he could reach of it, gaining speed once he heard how loud he could be with them.

In short order he heard footsteps on the other side. Sheldi opened it back up quite fast despite her urgency to close herself up inside and hide from any conversation she was prone to having with her mom. She sighed once she saw who it was and then kept walking the way she had evidently been going, letting Dean step into the living room/study combo. He turned his head to watch her stride up to the bookshelf that lined the wall, beside the window overlooking the grounds out front. She grabbed something small from the edge of the shelf-- something that most definitely wasn't a book-- and stuck whatever it was inside a small satchel bag that she carried.

She balked when she turned around and spotted Dean watching her, like she forgot just that soon that she let him in.

He never heard a word from her; she immediately moved for the archway beyond which lied the stairs. Dean barreled after her on limbs that transported him at what he believed to be the absolute _perfect_ pace, hardly overtaking her but not losing her, either. She was moving briskly, even though her face was ceaselessly faraway and hopelessly glum.

The narrow, spirally stairwell took them back up into the tiny hall, adorned with three doors for its respective owners and/or guests. Sheldi left through one of them, leaving it ajar behind her. Dean tracked her through it, only poking his head in to look around inside. Her room didn't look all that different in style compared to the room his brothers and himself slept in the night before. The redheaded woman stopped by her bedside table and grabbed a flask off the surface, giving it an experimental shake. Liquid sloshed around inside.

Dean sat back in the threshold, watching her with perpetually rotating ears and a slight cock of the head. The upper floor of this hut was even closer to the forest canopy than the stairs' landing outside, and through Sheldi's cracked window, _real_ chirping birds could be heard. A square of sunlight fell across the bed sheets. The room creaked precariously. Dean could safely say he had never been inside a structure quite like it.

"So, I know I'm not that good at letting things go," Sheldi said, from her most recent position sitting on the edge of her mattress. She was talking to Dean-- although he made no move to come any farther into her room. "I won't feel good for the rest of the day if I don't locate Kicker, though. I've... done it before."

She said that last part like it was some kind of "all the more" type reasoning. Reassurance was what Dean saw it as.

He didn't want to go on a rescue mission with an amateur; _he_ was one, after all.

He chose that moment to stroll in, walking straight up to her and almost bumping his nose on her knee. She didn't notice right away that he was there, it seemed; she was busy rummaging through the bag she was apparently going to be taking with her, a look of heavy contemplation in her downcast eyes. They blinked when she felt a paw land on her shin, making her look down.

"Huh. Congratulations?" she asked more than said.

Dean was getting sick of being congratulated today. More than he could literally say. Sheldi must have noticed the small trace of annoyance on his face (even though he thought his "shifted cover" masked any emotion he was feeling), because she grinned and stood up from the bed, giving the back of his neck a little scratch as she said, " _Kidding_ , kidding! I know you wanna come with. Go see if your brothers want in, too."

He backed out from under her hand and bolted for the door without having to be advised twice. Learning on the job was more his speed, anyway.   


	15. Bridge Out

"We'll only be out for an hour, give or take," Sheldi said, coming to the doorway of her room to lean. "I know from experience; that horse strays far, but not too far."

Dean was already headed downstairs, hearing her echoed comment in the hollowness of the hut but not stopping. His eyes locked on the floor of the main room as he approached it, and remembered that Seth and Roman definitely needed to  _understand him_  in order for him to relay any information to them. He scraped up all the knowledge he already had from shifting when he wanted to, and tried to set into motion another slick transformation, giving little mind to where he was.

The idea was to leap off the landing and  _jump_  back into his human body, in a regal light show.

It was all too late when he realized shifting on the stairs probably wasn't the wisest decision ever.

 

 

"Ohhhh, my god, that's better," gasped Seth.

They were still shocked by how great of a fight one needed to put up to avoid shifting forms when one of the three of them already had. After Dean left up the stairs, it became harder and harder to do so. Maybe even more so after they  _saw him_ in the form they weren't in. It was an alarming pull, to say the least.

Naturally, Maya turned it into a lesson in resistance. It felt heaven-sent when, suddenly and without warning, the pull just  _went away_. All at once!

Roman stopped feeling it, and Seth made it vocally clear immediately that he stopped feeling it, too. They both heaved a sigh, which was  _almost_  all the way out, when it decided to hitch in reaction to their human-again middle brother stumbling down the outside stairs, looking dazed and rubbing his shoulder.

How long had he been up there? The only way Roman could make a good assumption about the time was by paying attention to where the sun was; it had been beaming down on them from above when Dean and Sheldi returned to the hut, and now it was snaking through the trees from the side, abandoning warming their hair.

"You look like you just got stomped a few hundred times by that mechanical bull at The Crow, Ambrose."

The derisive little comment from Seth earned him a look from Dean and a playful, albeit weary cuff to the shoulder. It did little else besides get Roman thinking about the city again, and how much it felt like Sapling Forest was a whole other plane of reality in comparison to it.

No wonder Sheldi was so detached.

The Vulgar Crow was a part of that "other reality", and while Roman didn't necessarily miss it, it  _did_ take him back to a time when things made more sense.

Two days before, in all actuality.

"With all due respect to your teaching methods, Mrs. Holton," Dean went ahead and said, even going so far as to pick up the woman's left hand and clutch at it mawkishly, "I just pledged my allegiance to your daughter. Offered my services helping her find Kicker."

"Do as you will," Maya replied, with a tinge of annoyance about her voice. What little there was, she didn't bother hiding. She pulled her hand out of his two, which was fine because he let go at the same moment, equally adverse to keeping up the contact any longer than either of them had to. "I don't worry about you as much, since you seem to be further along in your abilities."

"You flatter me," Dean said, not lingering even for a  _second_ on the matter. "The thing is, I'd like my brothers on this one with me, since I don't go nowhere without 'em. 'S'that somethin' we could swing?"

Her stare was critical. "Only if they think they can  _afford_ to miss a lesson with me. I'll have no trouble finding other things to attend to."

A collective look was passed around between the three of them. The old woman was already glazing over; already  _knowing_  the answer to the question in regards to them. Seth did a little, "Ehh," and moved to stand with the second eldest, saying in followup, "Same forest, right? How long could this take?"

Roman followed suit. He fist bumped Dean without looking, instead directing his attention up the stairs as Sheldi came into sight, practically running down them and letting the door slam shut behind her. Maya blinked at the far off sound.

"Sheldi," she said, once the younger woman reached the bottom, "Kicker always comes back. Sooner or later. In a day. In a month. Hasn't he injured you?"

"He's battered me. Just a little." Sheldi lightly rolled her eyes as she said the words.

"If you stay, I'm sure he'll come back around. You just need to wait."

"I have a bad feeling this time." She touched her mother's forearm in passing, literally and figuratively brushing her aside. Maya's hands found her hips in short order. Roman made accidental eye contact with her and  _haha, nope, not doing that!_ He hastily looked away, grateful for the rapid fire distraction that came next.

"You guys coming?" Sheldi asked, shouldering her satchel higher and walking purposefully off, tailed by Dean. The question was meant for him and Seth.

_Ah, Maya ain't bad company. What's her and Sheldi's beef with each other about?_

Aside from wanting to stretch his legs out some more (and finding that just  _trying_  to turn back into a dog in a feat he wasn't so sure he could perform again not exactly cutting it),Roman figured it was something he had a better chance of finding out from Sheldi rather than Maya. He gave the older of the two a respectful nod and started after his brothers and new acquaintance.

 

* * *

 

_"You're meaning to tell me you had the Heart Warden in your clutches and you did not strike?"_

The question was far from sounding incensed, and yet that was what made it so incredibly, undeniably terrifying.

Salamander hung his head respectfully, slitted eyes trained on the grainy forest floor so as to avoid seeing the beast encircling him, like prey.

Said beast would not be much of a conversational partner to him otherwise.

"I was not aware of the situation at large, Crocotta. Yet, when I recognized him to be a Warden, I faltered. I was unsuspecting, you must understand..."

An eerie chuckle passed over him. A dark shadow fell across the dirt in front of Salamander's claws as the giant being bore down on him, saying in followup to the untrustworthy sound, _"I would consider neglecting to mention your blunder to our Lord if you join my Underworldian Corps, and work with me to fix your mistake. They and I would benefit from having heart-shooting tactics to_ play with _."_

"Play with," repeated Salamander, in a way that suggested he was checking to make sure he had heard right.

 _"Yes."_ An intimidatingly large paw scored the dirt on his right, claws the size of shark teeth making massive wells in the ground. _"I intend to have fun with our quarries before they are caught. Does this not appeal to you?"_

Salamander chose not to answer the question. He started walking with the monstrous animal to his back, head carried proudly despite himself. "I will help you, Crocotta."

 _"You know how to make a wise choice,"_ his new commanding officer said, stalking behind him on heavy feet.

 

* * *

  

It was safe to say they were only trekking farther _away_ from civilization, no matter how much Sheldi assured them that the walk back there would take mere minutes. Maybe the hours and days she spent zigzagging through the forest blended into each other.

Seth didn't know; probably because he'd never met anyone quite like her.

The woman was glancing up and down from the ground to the landscape ahead, undoubtedly familiar with her surroundings but presently _less_ familiar with what had just gone traipsing through them. She tossed some hair behind her shoulder but never stopped moving, overall appearing distracted and too occupied by her actions to be speaking quite as much as she, in fact, was.

"I'm still pretty baffled by the three of you," she said, not actually turning to look at them as she bent down to pick a smooth, weighty stone up off the ground. "You don't seem  _completely_ hopeless carrying yourselves out here, but your guy Dean here just tripped on a root and lost his footing. Are you woodland men or city boys?"

Dean's blank expression soured; he looked away and pretended to be oblivious to the little smirk Roman threw him, as well as the older's grip on his elbow and the jostling shake he gave it to receive recognition.

"We've been here before. A few times." But as Seth looked around, he started to doubt the words he just released aloud. The idea that they had ever gone  _this_ far into Sapling and didn't feel the need to backpedal by this point and stray back to the gang at the warehouse was unlikely.

They stuck their necks out before. Multiple times! They just weren't... the  _adventurous_ type. Hell no. Dean could barely stand having his arms touched by anyone he didn't know-- or couldn't tolerate completely and entirely. Obviously that only left Seth and Roman.

"Hmm." Sheldi stopped. They watched her shift her weight and stomp around on the spot, kicking down with her boots every so often. It was with varying degrees of concern for her mental health. "The ground here feels funny. Looser clumps; softer terrain. I know this forest floor like the back of my hand, and this spot isn't supposed to feel this way."

Seth walked up next to her and flailed a hand out toward the path ahead. "Well, by all means..."

"Ha. You claim you've been here before, but don't remember the-? Th- the... Oh no." The ounce of dread mixed into her usually-easy-going voice was enough to make a heart palpitate, and Seth didn't even know what was wrong.

"What? You forget something at the hut?"

Sheldi didn't answer; just broke off running down the trail, risking leaving them in the dust if not for their quick reflexes tearing off after her. She was fast, but not beyond catching up to. They never lost sight of her through all the twists and turns, which was good, because her abrupt stop almost caused them to skid into her-- car pile up style-- and a fleeting assessment of their surroundings proved that that would have been fatal for certain.

"The _bridge_!" she shouted, leading them to peer out over her shoulders at what they discovered to be an impressive gorge cut out of chipped, gray rock, cutting off their path with an unanticipated drop-off obstructed by leaves and tall grass. An accident waiting to happen if Seth ever saw one.

It wouldn't have been so, if not for the long, wood-and-rope bridge that hung, swinging, off the opposite side of the gorge across the way, secured there but not in the only other place it was needed, which was on _their_ side.

Their guide stared on with an agape mouth, at a loss for words evidently. Her group was far too impatient for this.

"Sheldi? I... _get_ that this is sad and everything," Roman started to say, most likely several hours too soon, "but I don't think a horse could've done this. Or gone this way at all."

"He _took out the BRIDGE_!" shrieked Sheldi, too lost in her own mind to comprehend words from anyone else's right now.

The stupor only seemed to let up for her when Dean barged in on it, with a rough, classic Ambrose-like malice, reinforced by a fist jamming itself into the opposite palm: "Him?"

"That creepy, slimy salamander," Sheldi sneered the words. "That tail is strong enough to shoot right through even the hardest dirt; snap the underground supports. Good thing Kicker would be too afraid to cross over that swaying monstrosity!" There was no trace of relief in her voice; just spite, that was _screamed_ at the canopy like Sheldi was completely certain the salamander was listening in and knew exactly what she was saying. As if.

She returned to herself somewhat. The thought of her equine friend brought her back, and an offbeat motion of her hand showcasing _meekness_ , of all things, prompted them to file behind her and continue their strange journey through Sapling.

It seemed only seconds later that Seth looked down and almost _vaulted_ at the evidence they were walking over. "Wait, does your horse have shoes on?"

"What?" Sheldi looked at him disconcertingly.

"Shoes. Horseshoes."

She looked past him to analyze the expressions his comrades wore, and obviously came up short as a result. "You're kidding," she said, plainly.

"Uh... no? We're walking over horseshoe prints right now." He motioned to the dirt below; the too-deep indentations in it shaped similarly to upside-down C's that couldn't be erased unless they spent hours shuffling their feet over them, revealed to the four after the first brush-over of leaves on the ground on their way back the way they came, away from the bridge.

"Oh, that's... _Oh_!" She stopped, hands flying out on either side of her body as if to hold the three of them back from going any farther. "I'm sorry! I've got an airbag for a brain right now." She tapped herself on the temple with the palm of her hand, no doubt mentally cursing herself. Seth had a feeling that whole deal with the bridge messed up her rational thinking to an absolute fault. "Those are definitely Kicker's tracks. Let's locate him!"

She didn't run ahead this time. Her eyes were on the path again, but she had the new and improved perspective of their sight backing her play. The horseshoe prints veered off into the trees they had yet to scour, but Sheldi pushed through with little hesitation. More shrubbery took the place of fallen leaves, on a slope leading upward astride short peaks poking out of the terra, like bushy lookout points.

When they reached leveler ground, they were relieved to see the prints again, pressing on. Not for much farther, though, luckily.

"Ah! There my boy is," said Sheldi, grabbing Dean's arm and pointing. Dean didn't seem to mind so much for once.

"Hey, he's not  _your_ -" And then Roman's eyes landed on the horse standing out in the bush-- picking at the earth, oblivious to their eyes on him-- and his arm lowered before he could full-on brush her hand off their middle brother. "Oh."

Sheldi detached herself quickly and slowly,  _quietly_ edged her way over to the hooved beast, shuffling her feet with little sound to emit. She clicked her tongue a few times, making Kicker's head turn. The stallion approached her shortly after that, unhurried. The red-haired woman gave his neck a relishing pat before turning and giving them a mock 'move out!' signal of the hand.

"That's done," Dean said, smacking his hands together as if to rid them of imaginary dirt. He was turning to descend the slope they just came up from when he stepped wrong; stumbled in his gait and almost tripped, by the looks of it. Seth opened his mouth to make a funny comment, but a sharp, very much  _un_ funny hissing sound cut him off.

A heaving, yellow-and-brown mass exploded out of the tall grass it previously blended in so well with. Dean jumped, startled, into Roman, who secured him before he could fall.

" _Ugh_. Back for more!" Sheldi angrily said. She left a re-spooked Kicker's side to charge the returning reptile, bringing out her dagger again. "I really gotta make another spear! Broke my last one." She made the rather casual remark to her three spectators as she stormed the scene, flying a kick into the notorious salamander's tail base and flank. A well was made in the soft dirt underfoot as the attack sent him sliding away-- unfortunately in the same direction they needed to go.

He rebounded, and that pointy-ended tail rose. Seth felt Dean tense beside him. Just as the creature approached with means of assault brandished, the younger man felt himself getting pushed back multiple steps by Dean. Sheldi's dagger arm was thrown back; Roman sped forward against Dean's shout of disapproval; it all happened in a single second.

They were engulfed by stillness again, because the sun's orange glow through the trees concealed the burst of light that came from their older brother's body when he phased down.

Now in that smaller, wiry, black-furred and floppy-eared body from hours ago, Roman held ground in front of them. Staring down the large, scaly critter, whose attack halted at his sudden, infuriated presence. Low growling filled the uncomfortable space, which was becoming less and less uncomfortable by the milisecond. His fur was bristled, and though Seth couldn't see from the angle he stood in, it was a safe bet his teeth were bared, too.

"Huh." Sheldi could be seen smiling as she put her weapon away. The standoff lasted no more than a minute longer before the salamander's face neutralized and he slunk away. Roman remained poised despite this.

All four of them eased off the shock at different paces, but Sheldi was far past over it already. She looked around for Kicker, but Dean found him instead; a giant horse face landed over his shoulder, pressing weight down and scaring him even worse.

" _Aauugh_!" he yelled, more out of frustration than fear once he shrugged both Seth and Kicker off him and flipped around. He backed away fast, almost running into Roman still stationed behind him.

Kicker inclined his neck innocently and snorted into Seth's ear next, making him laugh and push away from him also-- in far gentler fashion.

"Uh, y'know, Shelds... I'm startin' ta like the company you keep."

"Why, thank you," she replied, performing a little bow. "I take pride in the friends I make out here. That includes the three of you."

There was no tipoff to a joke or outright lack of sincerity of any kind. Seth actually thought she might have been yanking their legs, but there was no indication of this. No obvious one.

Sheldi's smile faded only when she stepped into Roman's visual crosshairs. She knelt down in front of him, and he shook his head to break himself out of his overbearing trance. She placed a steadying hand atop his shoulder.

"Are you all right?" she asked him.

He paused and darted a quick, almost panicked look behind him, getting an assured eyeful of Dean and Seth before he felt comfortable facing Sheldi again. He nodded fluidly, reminding Seth of the way Dean behaved outside the warehouse when  _he_ acted on impulse in much the same way. Acting way too human in a body that wasn't exactly made for it.

A contented sigh leaving her, Sheldi rose. Her hand brushed off Roman's back as she moved to attend to Kicker. Seth moved almost seamlessly with Dean in the opposite direction.

"Let's see if I can safely get this guy down the slope," the woman said, in referral to the horse. "Maybe you three guys wouldn't mind forming a protective circle around us, if'n that punk lizard comes back? I'd say I have all the faith I physically  _can have_ in you by this point."

"You hear that, Roman? You helped us move up a grade," Seth said, with enthusiasm that sounded mock but actually wasn't.

They were on a strange border between enjoying themselves and not, and it was somehow less confusing than anything Helmsley badgered them about at the consequential expense of inflicting harm on Seth, or them being able to turn into dogs, like magic, when they felt too much of one emotion.

Seth still wasn't ruling magic out. It was a pretty mature explanation to fall back on, really.

They obliged, and, happily, made it down the steep hill with no incident. The creature was long gone now, but... if Dean knew that Seth had noticed the way he was looking down at his feet while he walked to avoid stepping on any more tails, he evidently didn't care. In the end he supposedly thought it a better idea to shift back into dog as well, which he did with zero difficulty. He didn't stop for it, and, in fact, only picked up the pace, leaping over stretches of tall grass with that poofy tail flying out behind him.

With that, Seth had  _double_  the persuasion working against him now. He gritted his teeth and carried on walking.

Once they refound the far less crowded path, it was a simple matter of following it back to the hut. They were still fanned out around Sheldi and Kicker, on careful lookout, when they finally got back. Maya was sitting at the bench table out front, and looked up at their approach, a neutral face on.

"Hang out around here," Sheldi advised them, stopping by the table in her brisk pace to pat the surface of it. "I'll be back soon. Taking Kicker back to the pen." She made eye contact with her mother. "Hey. Can we talk in the house when I get back? Just us?"

The older nodded her head, but said nothing. Sheldi departed without another word, rubbing Kicker's face with a soft hand while she was leaving through the thicker trees; the same way she went with Dean earlier in the day.

"Hm. Maybe a little counterproductive?" Seth knelt on the ground beside the table, smiling when Dean's dog self padded in front of him and forcibly nosed his way under his forearms, allowing him to use his back and shoulders for balance.

Roman jumped up onto the bench beside Maya and put his chin down on the table. His hackles were down. The look on Maya's face suggested she could sense the past unease and intensity in him, though.

"How did he do it?" she asked, referring the question to the only currently human one out of the three of them.

"Oh. Roman? Uhh... the- the 'salamander' creature that scared off Kicker came back. It was getting ready to target me 'n Dean, but Roman intervened. Maybe... the thing's scared of  _dogs_? I dunno. He got really pissed; that's how he did it."

" _Really_?" Maya said, not in a state of disbelief or annoyance, but with wide-eyed, genuine interest. Seth could tell she wasn't looking for further answers from him... not that he would have much else to say, even if he  _didn't_ want to just sit around in silence and not do anything for awhile. Her turning back around and facing forward proved this as such. Her fingers drummed the table, making Roman's ears visibly perk.

Giving silent thanks to the short break in the action, Seth pushed off from the ground and went around the table to sit on the other side across from her. Dean promptly joined him.

"Hopefully Sheldi won't run into any more trouble out there," he said, despite desperately wanting either complete silence or a talk that was exclusively between himself and his brothers; the options were one and the same to him. "It seems like the two'a you didn't get to talk much today before she took off. You got any idea what she wanted to talk to you about?"

"Yeah, I've got an idea," answered Maya, practically sighing the words. Her attention picked up from the tabletop to observe him instead, making him start. "You haven't shifted yet, even though they have. Are you holding up well?"

"Oh, yeah." He was lying. Just a little. "Training myself up. It's probably good for me." He felt Dean's breath on his elbow and furry head butting into his side, seemingly in response to detecting said lie. Seth fidgeted down the bench instead of making eye contact with him.   


End file.
